DG Urges Service Providers To Improve Citizens’ Life

The National Office for
Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) has urged service providers to imbibe trademarks in their technology agreement that would improve the citizens’ quality of lives.
The Director-General of NOTAP, Mr Umar Bindir, said this at a stakeholders’ forum on Technology Transfer in the Nigerian Telecommunications Industry.
Binder presented a paper titled,” Foreign Technology Transfer: Domestication, Diffusion and Local Content Development’’.
He said that “some of the trademark licences being displayed by some service providers do not meet the requirements for approval of trademark agreement.
“The trademarks used by the service providers do not have any value addition,’’ he said.
The DG said that it was not the duty of NOTAP to over-police the industry but to ensure that service providers come up with products that were of high standard and of international acceptability.
He said that part of the challenges NOTAP was having with the telecommunication industry was that they were not presenting their plant and machinery for inspection.
“All technologies are supposed to be regulated to make sure that they meet the required standards,” he said.
Also, Dr Ephraim Okejiri, NOTAP’s Acting Director , Technology Transfer Agreement, said that agreements presented by service providers were not self explicit.
“You need to state exactly where the technology is coming from, the type of technology and the fees for it,” he said.
The forum was to create awareness on the potential available in the telecommunication sector for skills acquisition, technology development and job creation in Nigeria.
The forum was organised by NOTAP, in collaboration with Airtel, MTN and Etisalat.