RMRDC DG CANVASSES FOR DEVELOPMENT  OF ENGINEERING INFRASTRUCTURE IN NIGERIA

Towards overcoming the challenges of poor engineering infrastructure and absence of requisite engineering capacity output for industrial equipment design and fabrication in the country, the Director General of the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Engr. (Prof.) Peter Azikiwe Onwualu has called on both the Federal Government and other relevant stakeholders in the sector to support the development of a Science Foundation which will address the issues of local engineering capacities development and refurbishment of engineering infrastructures in the country.

Prof. Onwualu, in a position paper delivered at the just concluded conference organized by the Nigerian Society of Engineers, at the International Conference Center, Abuja, called for the refurbishment of all existing engineering workshops in Nigeria even as he advocated for the citing of new ones in order to strengthen the nation’s engineering sector by both government and private consigns.

He equally proposed the award of research and development grants to Nigerian scientists and engineers to encourage implant engineering scientific and technological inventions and innovations required to boost the industrial sector of the economy.

While noting the abundance of human and natural resources required to pull the country towards industrial and technological subsistence, the RMRDC DG regretted that little had been done by past governments to harness the local engineering capacity for the development of natural resources as industrial input critical to the industrial economy.

He noted that instead, over the past decades, roadside welders with little knowledge of process development were often patronized to fabricate equipment and machineries for processing resources. This, he argued, resulted in the production of equipment that never worked; while in some cases, the equipment were not effective and could not do the job they fabricated for. In other cases the equipments proved grossly inefficient which translated in heavy reliance on importation of equipment and machinery by the country.

Continuing, the DG said policies of government on importation in the past had not helped matters. “Government policies on importation have been changing and have contributed to high cost of importing these equipment. The increasing high cost has led to the low capacity utilization of most industries resulting in decline in production or closure of such industries.

“The major factor responsible for this is the very low level of development of machinery in the country. Some of the equipment/ machinery being imported can actually be manufactured in the country by those who are trained to do so.” He argued.

Prof Onwualu said the Council, mindful of this trend, had made significant progress towards encouraging local designing and manufacturing of equipment, plants and machineries and upgrading existing technology in the country thereby building capacity. These were achieved through the National Competition on design of process Equipment and plants organized by the Council in November, 2003 to February, 2005, National Foundation programme for Process Equipment Design and Development, Software for Design of Industrial Equipment, sponsorship of mathematical Modeling of Process Equipment, and development of Pilot plants to translate into commercial ventures R&D results for Nigerian scientists and researchers.

Prof Onwualu therefore suggested that more efforts should be put in place by all the stakeholders to revisit and establish a well funded National Science and Technology Foundation, refurbish all existing engineering workshops in both the public and private sector, intensify efforts in infrastructure provision, and develop and implement a national local content policy for the non-oil sector of the economy.