In the last five years, Dangote Group has invested more than US$170mn in the South East with the purchase of more than 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.
Apart from being the single largest buyer of the locally assembled trucks, the patronage by Dangote Group has revived the ANAMMCO plant, a vehicle assembly facility commissioned in 1980 by the Federal Government in partnership with Mercedes Benz.
Speaking at the weekend after a tour of the expansive ANAMMCO plant which was filled with Dangote trucks undergoing semi-knocked down (SKD) production, chairman of TSS Frank Nneji said that the revival of ANAMMCO was made possible by 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.”
He explained, “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 an agreement for the first 500 units of trucks.”
Nneji, who added that 90 per cent of trucks produced at ANAMMCO plant was for Dangote, said that the patronage has brought back Onne Port in Rivers State which has handled more than 3000 containers since ANAMMCO was resuscitated.
According to the National Automotive Policy, Enugu and Nnewi have been designated as the automotive centre for the South East in this axis. This is because of the stay of ANAMMCO over a period.
General manager, media, Dangote Group, Sunday Esan said that 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.
According to him, the massive investment in the South East is contrary to the assumption that Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the president and CEO of Dangote Group is not patronising local manufacturers.
