Gyan-Tawiah: Africa, An Important Part of Cummins’ Agenda

Gyan-Tawiah: Africa, An Important Part of Cummins’ Agenda

The Director of Distribution, Africa and Middle-East, Cummins Incorporated, Mr. Kwame Gyan-Tawiah, has stressed that Africa is an important part of the US fortune 500 global power company.

Cummins’ business portfolios cut across designing, manufacturing, distribution and servicing of diesel and natural gas engines and related technologies, including fuel systems, controls, air handling, filtration, emission solutions and electrical power generation systems.

Cummins West Africa Limited is the company’s subsidiary in Africa with Nigeria and Ghana as major countries of its operation in the continent.

Speaking in Lagos at the company’s customers’ engagement forum/facility tour, Gyan-Tawiah also noted that the Cummins had seen talents in Africa and would like to empower them to drive its business in the continent.

He explained that the facility was built to ensure that the company’s customers in Nigeria were given excellent service delivery, stressing that Cummins was interested in the country it operates in.

He said: “We have not done all these for ourselves but for our customers. For Cummins, if we talk about our stakeholders, it is the customers first and our employees second, then every other thing that a businessman thinks about follows. And so, we will continue to be that way. Those are our values.

“There are people who will like to find out whether Cummins is interested in the country that we operate in. This facility is housed on the land size that is bigger than anyone that Cummins facilities are on, apart from our factories in the world. So for Cummins, Africa is an important part of our agenda. If you look around, because we believe in local talents, every member of the leadership here is a Nigerian except one, even that one is still a West African.

“We try to grow talents where we operate and for us, Africa is paramount. So as we do our business here, we also want to make the talents of African to be able to manage the business, because Cummins know that Africa has got talents to be able to do that. And that is what they feel. If you go to Ghana, South Africa, or anywhere in Africa, you find the same thing, and it is one of our philosophy to do that”.

Gyan-Tawiah added: “We like to improve but we can’t always do that by ourselves, it is what our customers tell us that challenge us to try as much as possible to make products that serve the needs of our customers.

“The leadership of the company is here this week to have our quarterly meeting, and there were a lot of things that were discussed. The team in Nigeria said to us that for this year, just as every other year, ensuring that the customer gets excellent service is their aim.”

On his part, the Managing Director of Cummins West Africa, Mr. Ade Obatoyinbo, said the facility worth $35 million was the company’s biggest investment in Nigeria.

“This tells you that Cummins is taking Nigeria seriously and this investment is not for just now or for six months from now but it is for the long term. We spent at least $35 million on the facikity”, he said.

Related Articles