IT WORLD Why FG’s ‘bait’ fails to attract tech investors

The Federal Government’s promise of incentives has failed to attract fresh investors into the country; one year after a top official reeled out the baits.

The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, said in February 2016 that a number of incentives would be given to any company that set up in Nigeria provided they transfer their technology to Nigerians.

He was speaking when the Ambassador of Ireland to Nigeria, Mr Sean Hoy, paid a working visit to the ministry in Abuja.

The minister told Hoy that any tech investor from Ireland and other countries would be given tax holiday for a number of years in addition to other incentives.

He said: “We have a programme developed by the ministry: technology transfer development initiative whereby we will give incentives to any company or firm that comes into the country and allows technology to be transferred to Nigerians.”

Onu said his ministry was working with other ministries like Industry, Trade and Investments, Finance and Foreign Affairs to ensure tangible incentives were given to foreign tech investors (provided they are willing to share their technology with us).

This was being done to encourage investors to come in and set up and transfer technology to Nigerians, he had said.

But exactly a year after, findings by Daily Trust showed that no tech company had invested in the technology sector since the minister announced the incentives.

Instead , a number of tech companies -both indigenous and foreign owned ones --- are increasingly finding it very difficult to operate in the country due to their inability to access Foreign Exchange, and also due to high operating cost.

Officials and industry experts who spoke to Daily Trust said new investors generally are wary of putting their investments in the country for now because the economy is going through hard time.

David Onu, an ICT expert, said many things are just not right about the economy, and foreign and local investors would not stake their capitals here for now. Onu, who is the CEO of Interra Networks, said the government should intensify its effort at stabilising the economy by making Forex available to all sectors, and also control inflation.

He, however, advised the FG not to relent on its effort at getting investors into the country.

A top official who pleaded anonymity said foreign technology investors failed to set up plants here in the last one year because they were not willing to transfer their core tech knowledge to Nigerians.

“That proviso might have scared some of them away”, he said.