Sahco Pioneers Acquisition, Usage of Cool Dollies, Locally Produced Toilet/Water Bowsers

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Cool Dollies, first in the ECOWAS, acquired by SAHCO Plc, being Commissioned at MMIA, Lagos

The leading ground handling company in Nigeria, Sahco Plc, has commissioned a series of state of the art ground service equipment which includes, three Pallet dollies, two Pushbacks, Air Conditioning Units (ACUs), Water and Toilet Bowsers.

The Cool Dollies were reportedly built with the capacity for taking a pallet or two AKE container loads of temperature-sensitive shipment from the aircraft to the cold rooms or to the freezers in the warehouse as the case may be.

Furthermore, the hi-tech Cool Dollies were reportedly fixed with an automatic electric powered engine that is environmentally friendly and is also factory fitted with data loggers to catalogue the pressure and temperature level of the compartment to protect its contents.

The Managing Director, Sahco Plc, Mr Basil Agboarumi, while speaking at the commissioning said the Pushbacks are capital intensive, no thanks to the free fall of the Naira at the forex market. The Air Conditioning Units, ACUs, Water and toilet browsers, he disclosed were fabricated by Sahco engineers.

Sahco’s CEO explained that his management resolved to locally produce the toilet and water browsers because of the difficulties in sourcing foreign exchange from the domestic banks hence, saving time, money and other logistics such as the endless waiting for the Central Bank to make forex available at the time no one can predict.

Agboarumi said as the world had risen in unison to combat the climate challenge, all the equipment purchased were compliant with the carbon monoxide emission required standard.

He however appealed to the federal government to consider granting waivers to ground handling companies for their capital intensive equipment which are often mandatory to acquire in order to offer safe, efficient, economic and environmentally friendly services to the air transport industry.

Basil Agboarumi lamented that ground handling companies in Nigeria pay higher for the same equipment than their counterparts in Europe or the USA.

He explained that apart from the excruciating exchange rate, the cost of shipping often make the cost of purchase very prohibitive and when the customs duties of various dimensions are factored in, he concluded that the Nigerian buyers in the absolute terms, pay far higher than its counterpart in Europe, Asia and the US.

Also speaking at the occasion, Engr. Toyin Oriowo, the Assistant General Manager, Engineering and Maintenance, said that the three Toilet bowsers and two Water bowsers were produced from locally sourced materials.

Oriowo revealed that the three toilet bowsers and the two water bowsers have the capacity of servicing wide-body aircraft.