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From Noah Ebije , Kaduna
The Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) has gone into partnership with over 50 foreign and local partners since President Bola Tinubu signed the amended DICON Act into law in November last year.
The Director General, Major General Aniedi Edet, who made the revelation, said the partnership, especially with foreign investors, most of whom are bringing in money and expertise from different directions and spares of defence productions, would turn around the face of Nigeria’s military industrial complex.
General Edet who spoke during his routine ‘Durbar’ engagement with staff at the Corporation’s Ordinance Factory in Kaduna appealed to the workers to desist from industrial actions like their recent protests over certain allowances yet to be paid by the Federal Government.
He said such actions would discourage foreign partners from bringing their investments, but also constitute a threat to national security.
The DG who took time to explain the misconceptions that only DICON is not on IPPIS payment platform and that only DICON staff have not been paid the 2019 minimum wage areas, showed the staff documents indicating that several other Federal Government agencies that fall within the same category.
He assured workers that the DICON Management under his leadership was constantly writing and reminding the Federal Ministry of Finance of such yet to be settled benefits.
He told journalists shortly after the engagement that staff engagement is “key to us at DICON and that is why we have been consistent on this kind of engagement we call Durbar. This is because we have five management pillars in DICON which guide our management engagement. The first is the issue of Business Orientation; we said we are going to be running DICON as a business-oriented enterprise.
“The second one is the issue of professionalism and we have seen professionalism manifesting in DICON in so many ways. The issue of getting back to production is a professional part that DICON has been able to achieve.
“But, one of the key pillars, which is the third of our management pillars, has been communication. When I resumed in July last year, I discovered there were communication gaps, but we have been able to close that gap. We have been communicating with staff and this engagement we just had today is one in series of such engagements that we have been having.
“One of the things I recall telling the staff during today’s engagement was that we have brought out an innovation to even take our communication further. We are also going to have our maiden DICON Information Bulletin which we are going to be publishing every quarter.
“The last two of the pillars are staff welfare and partnerships, which were the real essence of this engagement and I am happy with the response of the staff.
“As you may recall, Mr President signed the Amended DICON Act into in November last year and by virtue of that, DICON has been repositioned and mandated to even perform much more. We have gone back to production, we have gone to do our maiden kamikaze drones and so many other things that have brought so many partners back to DICON.
“We have over 50 partners, both local and international, that have indicated interest in working with DICON. Many of them are bringing in money, some of them are bringing expertise, many of them are coming in from different directions and spares of defence productions and we believe this is going to turn the face of our military industrial complex around.
“So, I told them that, we must give a good impression to our foreign partners;, we must desist from acts like unnecessarily industrial actions, because such acts might misinform our partners that DICON is not doing what it’s supposed to do. It might reduce our investment and also threaten national security,” he said.
During the engagement, General Edet rewarded staff who had distinguished themselves in the course of their duty and those who played key roles in putting out a fire outbreak at the DICON Ordnance Factory recently.
