The Chairman of Innoson Motors, Innocent Chukwuma, has faulted the attacks on governor of Abia for his recent purchase of 20 Toyota branded vans for his security agencies.
In an interview with ARISE NEWS, Mr. Chukwuma noted that the Abia State governor has been one of his best customers so far and his company’s inability to supply the vans at the short time, prompting the governor to patronize another brand shouldn’t earn him any form of criticism
“Alex Otti is one of my best customers even before the governorship. He has been using my vehicles for years and he always commends the performance of my vehicles. So, this time, he requested so many vehicles from me, both for his commissioners, even for himself.
“I told him the pickup would be in the next 14 days and he said he needed the security pickup immediately. I told him that mine would only be ready in 14 days’ time because I had so many orders at hand. I finally advised that he can get from any brand since mine would not be ready in such short notice.
“Buying 20 vehicles outside the ones he buys from me is no problem. He has bought 80% of his needs from me. Its not bad that he took some from any other place to make sure his security is working. He is one of my best customers and I’m not against what he did.
“We are doing manufacturing and not importation and We manufacture according to order. Somebody who gives you an order of a hundred vehicles and you promised to deliver in 14 days, I don’t think that the time is so much. If you produce so much and keep, you will not see where to pack the vehicles. This was security vehicles that he needed immediately. You don’t know how his state is, so that’s why encouraged him that if he can’t wait, he can go ahead with anyone. We don’t produce much and keep because if we keep, many would say you gave them a second-hand vehicle.
“My factory has capacity to produce according to the orders we have. We have the capacity to produce about 30,000 units in a year”
He also called on the government and Nigerians to invest in his brand and other locally made commodities, stating that the more orders he gets, the more Nigerians are taken off the unemployment market.
He said “We have reached 40% of our production capacity. We employ people based on the orders we have. I have over 7,300 people working in my establishment. With support from the government, I will employ more 12,000 persons so that we can reach the unit capacity of the establishment.
“When we get more orders, we employ more people. We don’t need to take more Nigerians and put there without working. When we get more orders, we employ more hands.
Mr. Chukwuma also said, though his brand produces electric vehicles as well as the CNGs, there is more production in the line of the CNGs because of the cost of producing the electric vehicles.
“Because of the fuel situation of this country, we focus our attention to producing buses for masses. So, we have buses in stock. That two weeks we gave him is to be able to make space for him.
“Electric vehicles are very expensive now. We are doing it but people are not giving the order because the price is higher until we start to produce the battery in Nigeria. If we are not producing the batteries in Nigeria, it would be very expensive. That’s why people are buying the CNG because we have the CNG in Nigeria. This year, we are going to do 16,000 out of the 30,000unit capacity.” He said
Chioma Kalu
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