Amidst feeling of satisfaction over a dream come true project and a long focus into future CSR programmes, General Manager of TECNO Mobile in Nigeria, MR CHIDI OKONKWO, in this interview speaks about the ‘Light up Ikeja’ project and TECNO’s commitment to Nigeria. Excerpts:
What informed your decision to light up Ikeja?
As a corporate organisation, we feel we should not just be here to do business but to also give back to the society. This is one of many CSR initiatives of TECNO mobile. We have done other ones even in schools, we have offered scholarships, education intervention programmes; community development programmes and this community based project in Ikeja Local Government, through which we hope to spread our tentacles into other communities in Nigeria. But this is the first street light project. It has been on for two years and it was just recently concluded. The government has been helpful in giving us the permission, even the community itself is very happy with what we have done. Before, if you come to Ikeja at night, Computer Village used to be dark, but now its very bright at night. The light is on from 7pm to 6am. Already, the community is thinking of extending the trading period beyond 5 pm now that they have light. It is solar based, so constant power is guaranteed and we also have a maintenance team on ground that will make sure that nothing happens to the lights at any time; they will fix and maintain it.
There have been several projects of this nature that didn’t stand the test of time especially due to poor maintenance; will this project not go the same way?
If you look at our history as TECNO Mobile, there are lots of companies doing phones that are similar to TECNO, but the problem they have is that they don’t have after sales service. Some of those lights you talked about, probably, they are cheap ones and once they go bad, nobody to repair them. This light that we installed is actually done by a subsidiary of the Transsion Group, Hiflux, which is into LED lights and this is the best LED light you can find at the moment across Africa. So, these have a guaranty of 24 months, that is two years and our agreement is that after 24 months, the batteries will be replaced. So, there is already maintenance plans on ground.
Is there any plan to expand this CSR initiative into other communities?
As I said earlier, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step. We have taken the first full step and this is just the beginning. We will try our best, though we know we cannot be everywhere but we will ensure that anyone we start, we execute it brilliantly before we proceed to another one. It is not really about extending for extension sake but we will make sure that wherever we are, people enjoy what we have done. Like most of our devices that people use, what you know about TECNO five years ago is not the same today. So some of that knowledge is what we apply in anything we do.
Can you give us a break down of the projects, like how many streets and communities is it covering?
This project covers three communities here in Ikeja and they include the Ogunbiyi Community, Anifowoshe Community and Anibiyi Community. And we have installed a total of 88 units of solar street lights in these communities.
In the course of executing this CSR project, are there any challenges encountered either in getting approval from the government or from the communities?
Well, in the project proper, we actually got a lot of supports from Lagos State Government; we were supported by the Lagos State Electricity Board and we were supported by the Commissioner for Science and Technology, who introduced us to the Lagos Electricity Board and we met with the past and the present GMs of the Board and after going through our proposal, they granted us the approval for the implementation of the project. So, I can say that they supported us well. Also, we approached the community when we wanted to start this project and they granted us their consent and we also spoke to the Local Government and we got their consent. So, we did not encounter much problem in terms of approval, but we can say may be the approval time was too long. The issue was that the former Lagos State Electricity Board General Manager was replaced with someone else and the new person that came in needed time to settle down in office. So, when he eventually did, we went with the community to review the proposal that we sent to them and of course, he looked at it and he approved for us. Any other problems were just about logistics.
Can you tell us more about the Transsion Group, of which TECNO is a subsidiary?
Transsion Group is a holding company for the likes of TECNO that you are very much aware of. It is actually a Hong Kong based company. Initially, people were calling it the TECNO Group, but all the businesses that we have are actually under Transsion Holdings. So under the Group, we have TECNO, Infinix, Hiflux, iTel, afMobi, and Carl Care, which you may know about as our service arm, which takes care of defective products. So these businesses are subsidiaries of Transsion.
It is believed that when companies do CSR projects like this, they expect huge returns in terms of their product sales. What are your expectations after this project?
We are not actually interested in sales; neither are we looking at increasing our market share. What we are more concerned about is providing products and services that meet the needs of Nigerian consumers and then hope that they will be persuaded to embrace our products and services. In terms of having this as a strategy for sales, we do not see it that way, but we want to do things that will impact our immediate communities positively. We are driven by the desire to enhance business for our people and at the same time we will also provide products and services that are helpful to the Nigerian consumers.
Even though you have maintenance plans for the project, at what time do you plan hand over the project for the communities to take ownership and maintenance?
Well, we want this project to last for as long as possible; we don’t want it to fail. The LED lights have a life span of 10 years; the batteries in it have a life span of about five years and we have warranty of two years on these products. However, we will continue to support in terms of maintenance of these solar street lights for as long as possible. Of course, our solar panel is of highest quality and the specifications for the panels are enormous. We have over 400 watts; we have two panels per pole and each of the panels is 200 watts. So we have a total of 400 watts per pole and each pole has two batteries. Each of the batteries is 200Ahms. Also, the LED lights are 60 watts, which makes it very bright and then the pole itself is eight meters high. We have provided one of the best qualities of solar system, so we have warranties on these products and we can also take care of the maintenance beyond the warranty period.
Of course, the project actually belongs to the communities because we have handed it over to them; it does not belong to Tecno anymore. When it arrived the country, the whole system was stored by the community, they provided the warehouse and they secured it. The installation company was going to the warehouse to take the equipment for installation. So we do not have the ownership of the project anymore, we have donated it to the communities. But because we don’t want it to be a failed project, we will continue to support them in terms of maintenance.