NOTAP Foils Capital Flight, Encourages Indigenous Technology Adaptation

The National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) said that it has reduced capital flight in the country by encouraging the use and adaptation of local technology.

The Director-General of NOTAP, Dr. Dan-Azumi Ibrahim, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.

Ibrahim said that the agency was able to stop capital flight through its refusal to approve the importation of technological services that could be rendered by Nigerian technologists.

“Most times, when Nigerian entrepreneurs enter into technology transfer agreements with their foreign counterparts, the agreements are drafted in such a way that indigenous technologists/service providers do not benefit. Rather expatriates will be deployed to execute jobs that Nigerian technologists are competent enough to handle," Ibrahim stated.

“Through NOTAP’s interventions, such agreements are not approved unless redrafted to take care of indigenous technologists/skills,” he said.

Ibrahim noted that these measures were adopted not just to stop capital flight, but to also ensure the acceleration of Nigeria’s technological revolution, by encouraging local technology.

“Through efficient assimilation and absorption of foreign technology and with a more concerted effort geared towards the development of indigenous skills NOTAP has saved Nigeria a lot of billions of Naira in the last 10 years. The sum would have gone out of the country,’’ he said.

He stressed that NOTAP evaluated technology transfer agreements from three perspectives, legal, economic and technical perspectives.

“In the legal perspective, the office ensures that the provisions of the agreements are in line with the laws of the land, the economic perspective is to ensure that services being rendered are commensurate with the fees payable and the technical consideration is to ensure that the agreement has provision for capacity building and knowledge transfer,’’ Ibraahim noted.

The DG stated that NOTAP had initiated other notable programmes in collaboration with the industry to ensure rapid development of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), including NOTAP industry technology transfer and fellowship (NITTF).

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the NITTF is made up of screened graduates of first-class and second-class upper division from higher institutions in the country.

The candidates are in the science and technology field and passionate about lecturing.

The NOTAP boss said that the NITTF beneficiaries also received sponsorship for Ph.D. programmes in selected Nigerian Universities.

He noted that NOTAP in a bid to bridge the gap between academia and the industry had established over 40 Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Offices (IPTTO) across the nation’s institutions.

Ibrahim said that the culture of Intellectual Property in Nigeria was weak.

He, however, said that with the establishment of IPTTOs, the number of patents secured by Nigerian researchers had progressively increased.

NAN reports that NOTAP is responsible for regulating the inflow of technology into the country, through the registration of technology transfer agreements, while encouraging efficient adaptation, assimilation and domestication of foreign technologies.