Dangote Group has in the last five years invested over N63bn in the South East with the purchase of over 3,500 units of locally assembled Shacman trucks at the production plant of Anambra Motor Manufacturing Company (ANAMMCO), Enugu.
The order was delivered over a period of five years after Dangote Group signed an agreement with Transit Support Services (TSS), a subsidiary of ABC Transport plc.
The partnership started in 2016 with an initial order of 350 trucks by Dangote and as at today no fewer than 3,500 trucks have been supplied to Dangote from the ANAMMCO plant. Each of the trucks costs over N18 million.
Apart from being the single largest buyer of the locally assembled trucks, the patronage by Dangote Group has revived the ANAMMCO plant.
Speaking at the weekend after a tour of the expansive ANAMMCO plant which was filled with Dangote trucks undergoing semi knocked down (SKD) production, Frank Nneji, chairman of Transit Support Services (TSS) Limited, said if not for Dangote’s magnanimity and his commitment to empower local manufacturers, the ANAMMCO plant would have remained perpetually moribund.
ANAMMCO was built and commissioned in 1980 by the Federal Government which at that time was in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz of Germany. But the auto assembly plant was shut down after the Mercedes-Benz/ANAMMCO partnership ended, resulting in massive job losses. Life gradually returned to ANAMMCO when Shacman of China collaborating with TSS Limited entered into an agreement which led to initial skeletal operations that have now grown into a large-scale trucks assembly because of Dangote Group’s positive intervention.
“For more than seven years this plant was shut down. There was no activity here until we made an agreement with Shacman Group and started skeletally. But we were only to start full step production when we offered the logistics solutions to Dangote and the production facility of ANAMMCO way back in 2016.
That was the time we signed agreement for the first 500 units of trucks,” Nneji said.
Nneji said that 90 percent of trucks produced at ANAMMCO plant were for Dangote, adding that the patronage has also brought back Onne Port in Rivers State which he disclosed has handled over 3,000 containers since ANAMMCO was resuscitated.
The coming of the automotive policy also played a key role in the revival of ANAMMCO.
“This is one of the benefits. And the second thing is the benefit of Dangote’s patronage in identifying a plant that has capacity in the South-East, in Enugu, to give us the opportunity to produce trucks locally instead of importing them,” Nneji said.
“What this initial capacity surge did was to ensure that all the staff of ANAMMCO who had been at home had to come back to work. Some local suppliers, lubricants, electrolytes and the rest of them also had to come back to doing business. And it goes even further than that,” he said.
He said this shows how to spur capacity by utilising local capacity that is available.
“This is courtesy of Dangote and the patronage and each time we had approached Dangote, we said, ‘Look, if you are going to do this number of trucks, it is important that the Shacman apart from its quality, we are also representing a firm that has production capacity in the South East in the stake of ANAMMCO.’ That is how Dangote is keeping the South East automobile sector working,” Nneji said.
He said according to the National Automotive Policy, Enugu and Nnewi have been designated as the automotive centre for the South East because of the stay of ANAMMCO over a period.
“They have acquired a lot of technical capacity. There is also a training school that produces technicians, training young school leavers here. So this is what we are doing here. This place is busy producing quality trucks with Dangote as the largest single patron. 90 percent of the trucks produced here are for Dangote,” he said.
“Totally here we have done 3,500 units for Dangote. Additionally, the trucks used at the refinery are also Shacman trucks. Because of the quality of Shacman trucks Dangote also patronises that for the refinery,” he said.
Sunday Esan, general manager, media, Dangote Group, said the Group is satisfied with the Shacman trucks churned out from Onne Ports, adding that the partnership would last for a long time as the group continues to expand across its various business segments. He added that as the Dangote refinery comes on stream, the Group would require more trucks hence the sustained relationship with TSS/ANAMMCO.
The massive investment in the South-East is contrary to the assumption that Aliko Dangote is not patronising local manufacturers.
“This is why he agreed we should come and see how ANAMMCO plant has come alive, the impact he has made in the country and the employment this patronage has generated,” Esan said.
MIKE OCHONMA
