A truck ownership scheme that has just been introduced by the Dangote Group is expected to create additional 28,000 new jobs by empowering qualified Nigerians to be become self-employed truck entrepreneurs.
The Dangote Group, through its cement subsidiary, will provide 7,000 trucks for eligible Nigerians to become truck officers, who will in turn hire drivers and minimum of two assistants per truck, who will be using the trucks to deliver cement to its distributors spread across the country, the firm said in a statement.
The firm stated, “We have 7,000 trucks to share with intelligent, hardworking and committed individuals with business acumen, who will like to deepen their entrepreneurial skills in the transport/haulage business and are willing to manage and operate the trucks, if necessary, by appointing their own drivers, who should pass the institutional screening, orientation and training process.”
The package, according to the conglomerate, includes total support for the benefiting entrepreneurs through provision of first class maintenance support, fuel and other resources available at its facilities.
To be qualified for the scheme, Dangote explained that each applicant must be a professional, who must ensure at all times the availability of his/her truck for loading at the plant level and off-loading at the customer/depot locations to serve the customers with the firm’s products.
While the would-be entrepreneurs must be graduates, the truck drivers need not be graduates, and both would work together to ensure the success of the new product delivery strategy.
The statement added, “To become a bona fide owner of the truck, among other considerations, the truck entrepreneur must have logged a minimum of 400,000 kilometres. On meeting the mileage target, a nominal amount will be paid by the truck entrepreneur and this amount will be provided to the truck driver, who would have assisted the truck entrepreneur in meeting this target; the money will represent a discharge payment to the driver.
“Any driver so discharged above can again apply and be engaged to work with another truck entrepreneur.” By this, Dangote said it was up-scaling the quality of its customer service delivery and taking advantage of the new strategy to create jobs for jobless Nigerian. Agency reporter
