2012 budget: FG to provide for local satellite manufacturing

The Federal Government will provide for indigenous manufacturing of satellites in the 2012 budget, our correspondent has learnt.This came to light on Monday when the President of the Senate, Mr. David Mark, visited the National Space Research and Development Agency in Abuja.While welcoming Mark, the Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Ita Ewa, had said the Federal Government would soon sack some workers of the agency, whom he classified as saboteurs.Mark said, We are waiting for the presentation of your 2012 budget. We will assist you as much as possible to achieve the objective.The President of the Senate was responding to complaints that the agency could not make satellites locally because the Assembly, Integration and Testing Centre had not been completed.Mark, who commended the space agency after visiting the ground station that monitors the recently launched Nigeria Sat-2 and Nigeria Sat-X satellites, said there was room for improvement.He said, Of course, there is a lot of room for improvement and there is a lot of room to bring in many new things if we want the station to be what it ought to be. We will definitely do everything possible to ensure that we advance science and technology.For a very long time, we had de-emphasised science and technology to our disadvantage and we have realised that now and so definitely, the 2012 budget must adequately address the requirements of science and technology.Ewa said the Federal Government was aware of the NASRDA workers who had not helped the course of the agency, adding that such workers would soon be shown the exit door.I will not accept irresponsibility in space technology. We will flush out every saboteur. Already, I have been told there are bad eggs here that have to be flushed out. That, we will do.The Chairman, Senate Committee on Science and Technology, Prof. Robert Boroffice, said many people were not aware of the importance of science and technology, noting that such people needed to be educated.He emphasised the importance of installing the AIT centre, adding that until that was done, no satellite could be manufactured in Nigeria.Boroffice, who was pioneer director-general of NASRDA, said it was important to stick to the 25-year development plan that had already been developed for the agency even though some targets had been missed.
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