AlhajiMusa Bashir Usman, Head of Corporate Communication, Peugeot Automobile Nigeria (PAN), spoke to SAXONE AKHAINE on the repositioning of the company after its privatisation by the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE).Since privatization, how have you managed the company'MAY be I should say that we have been managing with the situation on ground. Don't forget that when we took over, our taking over coincided with the global economic recession, and most of the companies that were in Nigeria and other parts of the world faced the challenges of coping because the issue was that of survival.And many countries and economies, and ours not an exception were faced with the challenges of coping with financial problems. That is, sourcing credit from financial institutions became a problem and banks were not really willing to lend because, even the banks faced the same problem of financial crunch. But, so far so good, after taking over from the BPE, the management of PAN injected more life to this company through our vision. It is part of our vision, according to our vision statement to be leader in Nigeria automobile industry driven by superior technology, and how to achieve this is to manufacture, distribute reliable vehicles and for the satisfaction of our customers and stakeholders.We have been able to achieve this even though the process is ongoing. I will say we are coping with the challenges.Since PAN was privatised how much has the present management invested and what are the various infrastructure put in place to enhance productivity'Well, the first thing we did after taking over was to improve on the facilities on ground. We ran an assessment on the quality of the human resources that we have, to look into the areas where we think the human resources needed improvement, so that we can organise training. After doing that, we organised training both internationally and at the domestic level. Some of our people were sent for training, some out of the country on how to handle new production models and other fields. Again, we ran a kind of assessment on the facilities. If I talk about the facilities, I mean the buildings and equipments. Prior to this, not much was done in this area. So, we did a facelift and renovation to upgrade the facilities, and change the machines that required changing, to ensure that we have good working tools and environment.We also looked into the area of power; we saw that it is a problem in the country, especially when you are into automobile business you have to have your own stand-by power source to run your plant. We run a kind of analysis on the generator set and found out that we needed to change some of those generators and we invested close to one billion naira in this area. We provided three standard generator sets to power the plant presently. When we acquired the company, we inherited a project, the T 6 project of PAN. That ushered us into the production of the 307 Sedan. Prior toa that period we were on 406. With the help of our technical partners we changed most of the tools and the production lines, we invested heavily on it too. Because, setting a production line like this is a multi million naira project. Former Vice President, and now President Goodluck Jonathan came to commission the T 6 production line, it was a big event in November 2009.We have done a lot in terms of investment and face lift of the company and this has run into several billions of naira.Members of the Senate ad hoc Committee on Privatisation visited PAN to see things for themselves. They recommended that the Federal Government should reconsider the sale of some of privatised companies because they are not doing well. Do you think this decision may affect PAN'They came and we took them round. And I think to some extent, from our own assessment they were impressed. They also asked us if there were areas we felt government should help. That I think is because they appreciated what they saw on ground here, compared to other places. This is a factory that is running daily, our workers are working, we are producing, everything is in order. Like the face lift we have carried out today in PAN, when you come into our plant you can hardly say that you are not in our technical partner's plant in France. So, everything is working here. I don't think the committee has any reason to doubt our effort here in PAN.What is PAN producing today and what are your challenges'Presently, we are producing 307 Sedan. And we are also investing on another line of production, and by next year, I think we shall hit the market with this new line of production. We are presently investing heavily on it. I cannot pre-empt it now. And we have said it many times that the Federal Government should consider giving incentives and patronage to automobile companies that are producing in Nigeria, so that they can continue to encourage us to produce for our local market and also export. The situation presently, where cars are imported indiscriminately from abroad, where conditions for production are more favourable, does not encourage us. Government should look into ways of encouraging local automobile companies, that is the only way to create job opportunities and encourage growth in the economy.
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