Kwali Wire and Cable is an electrical cable and PVC pipes indiginous manufacturing company sited in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The three-year-old company entered Nigeria market last year after been certified by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON). The chairman of the company, Mr Yemi Afolabi in this interview with Viewpoint Housing News advises developers to always seek genuine and reliable cables by buying from accredited dealers or manufacturers.
Viewpoint: Apart from being manufactured locally, cables are imported into Nigeria. Why venture into a saturated market?
Afolabi: One, the market is wide. Two, when you take a look at cable manufacturing in Nigeria, it was fully dominated by non Nigerians. But in the last 10 or 15 years, indiginous investors started coming into cable manufacturing.
By all standards, Nigerian cables are the best all over the world because the Standards Organisation of Nigeria is very strict when it comes to electrical cables. Considering the market and being in that profession and in order to stop this adultratration, all this illegal importation of substandard cables, we deem it fit to say “let’s go into this to contribute toward industrialisation of Nigeria” by providing genuine and reliable electrical cables
Viewpoint: So what has been the response of Nigerian consumers to your products?
Afolabi: We’re new in the market. There are other well known names. But what we normally tell people is, when it comes to Nigerian cable, we provide the best. We have the parameters.
The cross-section of the copper – the standard given by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria — minimum is 1.33 while the maximum is 1.38. That’s the cross-section of the copper itself.
We started with 1.38 which is the maximum standard in order to hit the market. Others go below that. But if you’re within 1.33 to 1.38, in between, you’re stiill within the standard. Anything below that, it’s a substandard cable. That’s why we discourage importing cables from China, London. They have their own standards.
The second thing is when you’re producing electrical cables in Nigeria or Africa as a whole, you have to consider our climate — the purity of copper you use and the quality of insulation you use. A situation where somebody uses a substandard – maybe non oxygen-free copper to produce electrical cable – those are the kind of cable when you touch, you notice it getting hot which means the resistance is high. It’s like mixing of other materials with the copper.
In a situation where you don’t use pure copper to produce electrical cable, you tend to have that problem and that is part of what the Standards Organisation of Nigeria guards against. When you take such to the laboratory and test you discover that it’s substandard. We all know the repercusion. It seals up the company.
Viewpoint: Building of houses in Nigeria is not exclusive preserve of professionals. In that case, use of substandard building materials can be rampant. Is this a concern to you?
Afolabi: We always advise builders…as for cables, we’re the best, the highest quality. We’ve been educating people. Regardless of complaints about price, whatever that’s good, definitely you pay for it.
The landing cost of these substandard cables that people use – they might tell you 1.5 mm selling at N7,300, somebody might say they bought at N4,700. Look at the difference! It’s substandard. It’s either it’s not up to 100 meters or the cross-section size or the copper itself is not up to 1.33 that was approved by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria.
So we educate people. Get to the source, buy your cable from the right source – from the accredited dealers or the manufacturers. Be sure of buying a genuine and quality…if there’s any problem in future, you can easily trace it back.
House fire incidents are caused by substandard cables through the AC or cooker or socket. Many sockets, when you remove them, you see they burn. It’s caused by substandard cables because the resistance is high. When you have high resistant conductor, you’re bound to experience that hotness especially where you have the twin cable. The insulator is a petrochemical material. By the time the cable gets hot, there’s tedency of it melting and when it touches, it sparks. When it sparks on a petrochemical material, it catches fire.
We always advise consumers to know what they’re buying. You have the right to pick any sample, take it to any laboratory of your choice. There’re standards, ask questions. But the awareness is not there. People just say let’s buy cable.
Many are lucky because most of the installations come on single strand, not like those days there was a pair of cable inside one…now it’s separate. One may be hot, one may not be.
Viewpoint: How do we identify Nigerian made cable?
Afolabi: You can’t stop fakers of products. That’s one of our major problems. We normally engrave our name on our products. We engrave the size of the cable, the length but most of those who fake our products make it difficult to defferentiate unless you take it to the laboratory.
There are experienced engineers and technicians that can easily know through the weight of the cable. Once they pick pure copper they know. But when you pick some copper mixed wth aluminium…Before now, people discovered fake cable by using magnet. When you put it on the copper and it picks you know that it’s fake. If it doesn’t pick, you know it’s good.
They have now adopted another method. They’ll mix it with allunminium. Alluminium too, magnet can’t pick it. At times they make alluminium coated copper. When you look at it you say this is good copper but from the weight you might know whether it’s fake or not. But that depends on those who are used to testing it.
The best way out is, if you’re buying in bulk, pick some samples, take them to any laboratory or you ask engineers or technicians to plu them, take resistant, distribution tests – there are small instruments that can do that.
Viewpoint: What has been the challenge in producing cables here?
Afolabi: Shortage of funds and power. We spend a lot. The good thing is technology is growing every day. Most of the equipment were customised and we designed the power to our need. If there’s no power from the main source, we power it with ATKV generator. Without doing the customised power unit, 500KV can’t carry it.
You know, cable production line is capital intensive. Even if you drop a billion naira there, you’ll discover that you’ll produce cable that will not cover the size of this office. We need a lot of funds. We’ve applied through manufacturers association to the Bank of Industry but most of the conditions, we can’t meet. It insists on having a CofO of the Federal Capital Territory which is very difficult to get.
Our site is in Kwali so we’re only granted Area Council CofO. Commercial banks don’t accept that. The more money you put in, the more expansion you have, the lower the price. We produce within N40 million to N50 million [worth of products] whereas if we have enough money to bring in more raw materials especially copper, our weekly production capacity with these equipment is between N150 million and N200 million.
Viewpoint: You call the company Kwali. Is it because the factory is sited in Kwali Area Council?
Afolabi: it’s part of it. We wanted an indigenous name. Many people know Kwali. The initial plan was to name it Abuja Wire and Cable but during registration with CAC [Corporate Affairs Commission], we were denied Abuja Wire and Cable name.
Viewpoint: Quite often, when there’s fire incident in a building, we blame it on power surge. How much of this can be placed on the quality of cable?
Afolabi: A lot. If you have a good cable, even when it breaches, it cuts off your…it either trips off the circuit breaker or any of the start plugs from your distribution board. Even if it doesn’t trip it off from there, it goes to your feeder pillar. If the cable you use to the feeder pillar is genuine and it can’t cut it off, it cuts off the SLP.
People consider price when buying cables. For example, our own 1.5mm is sold for N7,500. There’re people selling theirs at N10,000 plus. The same cable, same quality, same standard because they have a higher running costs.
Viewpoint: How is your relationship with the product regulator, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria?
Afolabi: Once you’re producing, even if you’re producing the best without the Standards Organisation of Nigeria’s certification, you can’t sell. They regard you as an illegal manufacturer. The Standards Organisation of Nigeria has to be aware, know the kind of cable you’re producing, the quality and then the standard.
For people like us who’re in Abuja, they can visit our factory without notice. They can pick two or three of your products, take them to their laboratory. So it will be difficult for us to cut corners being very close to them here. The headquarters of SON is here. There is the Federal Capital Territory divisiuon here. Any of them can decide to go on isnpection.
