By Ebele Orakpo
Quality, especially in health and construction sectors is everything. Sacrificing high quality on the altar of low quality can be fatal. Someone rightly said that if you think education is expensive, try ignorance and I will add, if you think high quality products are expensive, try low quality products.

One man who does not believe in half measures is Mr. Dan Ayidu, the Chairman of El-Hanan Ventures Limited, a wholly indigenous company which operates in the areas of healthcare (providing medical/laboratory equipment), construction of hospitals and information technology.

In this chat with Vanguard in his Abuja office, Mr. Ayidu speaks on the journey so far and the challenges of doing business in Nigeria.

Excerpts:

El-Hanan started operations in Lagos in 1995, dealing in medical and laboratory equipment. According to Mr. Ayidu, he was motivated to go into the business after he discovered the dearth of good quality medical equipment in hospitals.

“We discovered that there was so much ignorance in the health sector. Many hospitals lack good quality health equipment and a lot of doctors were not skilled enough in modern technology in health applications. We formed an alliance with international companies that have been tested and with best practices in products from Germany, US, Israel and other European countries. We work with donor agencies and later  started working with government agencies.

“As a policy, El-Hanan does not sell any equipment that is substandard, that does not have warranty and that does not have after-sales services. We offer a wholesome package. We offer training, after-sales services, monitoring of our customers and having a feedback on how they are doing and also being there for them when they need us,” he stated.

The cliché: ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ seems to hold no water in the El-Hanan experience as according to the chairman, El-Hanan not only deals in medical/laboratory equipment, it is also involved in civil engineering/construction of hospitals and Information Technology (IT) solutions and they have fared very well, thanks to the team of experienced and dedicated professionals who respond promptly and efficiently to customer demands.

“Our workforce is a selection of dedicated, self motivated and time tested experts. We are also ably supported by our overseas partners like Karl Storz, Luminous Medical USA, ADE, Eppendorf, Indrel, Greiner-bio-one and others who provide us with expert back-up services.

“The staff include seasoned physicians, medical equipment consultants, laboratory scientists, architects, engineers and professional project managers. They are made up of Nigerians and foreigners who have cut their teeth over the past 30 years with highly reputable organisations and institutions,” he said.

“We got into IT with some technical agreement with people from India and US. We looked at the wholesome package, we saw the challenges in the IT sector in Nigeria. A lot of Nigerians are not very versed in IT. Also many civil servants, secondary school students and primary school pupils are not very versed in IT, they still like to do things manually. These are things we look into. We are also into training. We have trained a couple of people,” he noted.

On the challenges of doing business in Nigeria, Ayidu has this to say: “The procurement process is slow. They need to make it faster. Two, the procurement process must also bring enhanced confidence so that banks and financial institutions should trust government contracts. Third, we see also the legal framework – the sanctity of contractual agreements must be binding and be respected to encourage foreign investment

Though fairly stable, the exchange rate is not so okay because international investors must be able to have a work plan for their investment that will say ‘we have a gestation period, a work plan of five years, that if I invest US$1 million, converting it into naira that by the time I am bringing it, I can get my money back because if I bring US$1 million, the exchange rate is for example N160 to a dollar, then before three years time, a dollar is N250, so he has not gained anything. Rather, he has suffered loss.

So this will not encourage people to invest. So what do they do? They just decide to put the money in offshore account and use the dollars to get money from the local bank as collateral so that if tomorrow there is distortion in the foreign exchange market, they don’t lose because their debt is domesticated.

However, for us to have massive foreign investment, Nigeria must be able to develop the productive sector that will not only be import-dependent but at the same time, be able to produce things by ourselves and the quality process and testing must be enhanced for Nigerians to trust made-in-Nigeria products and also for foreigners to accept Nigerian products based on the fact that one, the quality is certified and the regulatory authority must see that it does not compromise on anything.

Bringing in substandard products from other countries must not be accepted so that there will be room for competitiveness.”

The power sector, he noted, is another big challenge as people spend a lot of money to fuel generators. “The banking sector does not believe in long-term investment. They are just traders and with that, the economy cannot grow.

That is the reason government has to look into long-term development of the productive sector where people can set up industries and not just put money in finance houses because if they don’t, there will be a lot of jobless youths and there will be social insecurity and nobody will be safe.”

On the way forward, the El-Hanan Ventures boss believes that government has to understand that people who are fixing their money will not be able to generate jobs.

“The government should encourage people like Dangote and others who are investing in the productive sector by providing the necessary infrastructure.

Essentially, the Power sector should be improved and given to the private sector to manage, the railway transportation system must be improved urgently and the roads made motorable. The judicial process must be firm that any complaint between companies or investors are accepted with little or no political interest so that people should see the judiciary as the last resort to resolve their differences in commercial adjudication,” he stated.