In the forefront of a technical revolution
Lazarus Angbazo, the president and CEO of GE Nigeria, referring to GE’s company’s biggest investment in sub-Saharan Africa till date, said: “This investment is not just about the factory. It is about building a competitive supply chain to support Nigeria’s growth in the global economy, it is about technology transfer and it is about job creation and human capital development which are necessary for sustainable growth.”
The $1 billion investment in a service and manufacturing facility in Calabar, Cross River State, is the second of its kind in the world.
Since his appointment, in 2008, as president & CEO, GE West, East & Central Africa, Angbazo’s responsibility has been expanded to include commercial growth leader for Africa Region in addition to developing and expanding the growth of GE’s businesses and functions in Nigeria.
Electricity and rail transport were linchpins of the second Industrial Revolution (1870 to 1914). The incandescent electric bulb and electric power distribution were two of several inventions of Thomas Edison, renowned inventor and founder of General Electric. Also referred to as the Technical Revolution, the period was marked by the great influence of applied technology in tinkering with economic problems.
Since the days of Thomas Edison, GE, through its people, innovation, commercial acumen and foresight, has remained in the forefront of power generation, power distribution, healthcare and transport.
Over the course of decades, GE has built a very large platform that covers all sectors of GE businesses across the globe – oil and gas, power and water, energy management, aviation, healthcare, transportation, GE Capital and home & business solutions.
Though GE has been in Nigeria for many decades, the company, early into the tenure of Jeff Immelt, the present CEO, identified Africa as “an extremely important region”.
Nigeria is GE’s biggest platform on the continent representing about one-third of the entire GE Africa business. In the past two years, GE has renewed its focus in Nigeria with businesses spanning across major infrastructure sectors with about 400 employees, offices in Lagos and Abuja and service facilities in Port-Harcourt and Onne. GE currently serves over 100 public and private sector customers and partners in Nigeria.
Before he joined GE in 2004, Angbazo worked for JP Morgan Chase, New York, between 1997 and 2004 holding senior positions in corporate mergers & acquisitions, strategic planning, and credit portfolio management. As assistant professor of Finance at Purdue University, he served as research director at Fannie Mae in 1996.
As the man saddled with GE’s largest African footprint, Angbazo, who has a PhD in Corporate Finance from New York University, will be intricately involved in, perhaps, one of the largest electricity and transport projects of the 21st century. About 60 percent of all the installed power generating capacity in Nigeria today is dependent on GE technology.
In 2012, to demonstrate its commitment to Vision 20:2020, GE expanded its landmark Country-to-Company agreement with the Federal Government of Nigeria by signing investment MOUs for project development in power, healthcare, and transportation sectors of the economy.
The MoUs with the Federal Government include equity investment and project development expertise for developing 10,000MW over the 10 years and for re-developing Brownfield facilities. GE Power & Water has supplied four gas turbines to Papalanto. GE has also partnered with local companies like Transcorp, Honeywell, Oats Global and Ibom.
In the transport sector, GE has partnered with Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA). Both are studying the possibility of setting up a railway assembly plant in Nigeria.
The First Class graduate of Mathematics from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria sees the link between transport and economic development. “There’s a very strong correlation between the strength of the transport or logistics sector and the growth of the GDP. We are aware that only one percent of Nigeria’s freight is carried on rail so we are really very far from where we are supposed to be as a country. That is why GE is happy to partner with government and other stakeholders in reviving this sector,” he says.
GE has a long history of building the foundations of Nigeria’s power sector. It is a prime mover-supplier on 90 percent of new power generation sites. GE Power continues to demonstrate its ability and track record of harnessing skills and building capacity to address the power generation needs of Nigeria – steam turbines generate about four-fifths of all electricity generated in the world.
Over the next five years, the $1 billion investment in Calabar, as well as an additional investment in its service workshops at Port Harcourt and Onne, are aimed at strengthening GE’s local presence; making Nigeria a regional hub for manufacturing, service, and innovation. The company will also spend an additional $800 million over the next 5 years in local sourcing of goods/services, labour, staff welfare and training.
GE is collaborating with Cross River State educational and community leaders to implement curriculum, instructor development and equipment enhancements that will support the development of top-notch vocational school graduates. Repair engineers, welders, fabricators and machinists will be trained, through one-year to four-year programmes, internationally and locally at a training facility in the Calabar plant.
Angbazo contends that the investment in manufacturing/assembly plant “will significantly increase the local content of our operations…local ownership of equipment, in-country project execution expertise and use of local legal, financial advisory and engineering services. When this project is completed, our annual spending on these basic services that will be locally sourced is expected to increase to over $60 million”.
To increase its local supplier base from 10 to 100 local suppliers, GE has held three supplier fairs in Lagos, Abuja and Calabar, assessed and verified 80 local engineering companies, and the first set of 10 companies whose capabilities meet GE’s needs for the planned facility have been on-boarded into its supplier development programme. Local suppliers will be supplemented by GE’s global network of suppliers in Europe, Asia and the Americas, with the added benefit of accelerated skill acquisition and technology transfer through joint ventures.
In Nigeria, Angbazo will be harnessing already tamed, tried and tested technologies – electricity and transportation – to resurrect, revive, and restructure, the country’s moribund electricity industry, transport sector and economy.
Contributed by Tayo Fagbule