LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS
“Local Content Implementation has helped us create more jobs” – Onafowokan, MD Coleman Cables by the end of 2014. Through his leadership, the Company has grown to be an industry leader in the Cable manufacturing industry by producing Coaxial TV/Video & Cat 5/Cat 6 cables which are first’s for Nigeria & West Africa, and have taken it a notch higher by building the FIRST High Voltage XLPE cable production plant in West Africa, making Nigeria only the SIXTH country of production in Africa.
M
r. George Olutope Onafowokan is the Managing Director/CEO of Coleman Technical Industries Limited, manufacturers of the popular brand Coleman Wires & Cables and also serves as the current Chairman of the Electrical and Electronic Sector of the Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria (MAN). He is an Accountant by profession, having obtained a combined Bachelor degree in Accounting and Finance from Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester UK. He thereafter obtained a Degree of Master in Management and Information Systems (Combined) from University of Salford, U.K. He started his career in Packard Bell UK as Field Manager, where he shined in sales and marketing as well as customer relations. He thereafter joined PC World UK as Business Accounts Manager and later, Gem International UK Limited as the Pioneer Managing Director. As a worthy son of the soil, he returned to Nigeria in 2002 to lead the team to restructure Coleman Technical Industries Limited manufacturers of Coleman Wires & Cables and grew the Company’s Assets from N50Million in 2002 to N15Billion 50
Majorwaves Energy Report
I n t h i s br ief ch at w it h Majorwaves Energy Report’s Editor, MARGARET NONGOOKOJOKWU, Mr. Onofowokan speaks on issues bordering substandard products as well as the impact of the Local Content Act on his business amongst other issues. Excerpts Congratulations on your award! How did you feel when your company was announced as one of the Nigerian Indigenous Service Providers with the most impactful contribution to Local Content Development (within the period of 2017 to date?) I was shocked; shocked with excitement because we were not told that even the award will be in anyway because most of the awards are always won by Oil Servicing Companies, I have technically not seen a manufacturer win an award by the NCDMB or NOGOF before, so it was a pleasant surprise. We have worked hard over the last seven to eight years and to actually achieve this recognition is really impressive; it has been a painstaking journey, but I would say under the current leadership of the NCDMB, it has been a journey that has been made easy. So as a Nigerian, we actually see opportunities and know that the local content Board is there to back you if you put your money in it. So there is no discouragement anymore for investment, even for
MAY- JUNE 2019, Vol 2 No 3
the Nigerians. Like the Executive Secretary would always say, “It is not about Nigerianizing local content; it is about making Nigeria a Local Content hub“, so that is why we are participating and we understand that and are driving that focus, and that drive is what is making us to even invest more. So, when you are actually seeing things like this, you are encouraged that you are a local manufacturer within this big, I call it a small cloak of big Oil Service sector and it is almost impossible to find manufacturers within this scope, it is encouraging and that is the drive that is keeping us going. So, going forward now, what do you think you can do extra? I mean, this is like an incentive to you; that someone recognizes what you are doing – what more do you think you can do? I think we’ve started doing more already, based on what we’ve seen them do over the last two years. Since the visit of the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote in February 2017, we’ve actually been encouraged, because if you look at what he said then and what they’ve done, it has encouraged us to invest more. Now the investment we are putting in is bringing in new things like the Rubber Cables, like the ESP Cables into Nigeria, into In-House local production. We’ve already done high voltage and have started seeing the benefits of making high voltage cables with orders from the Oil and Gas sector. The next phase is where we are going to; it is a big investment, but we started it even before NOGOF and they saw that we’ve started investing in expansion. It has created for us an extra additional five hundred to a thousand jobs; and we see more opportunities for us to create new jobs.
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