By Amin Kef Sesay
One of Sierra Leone’s successful business entities, the National Petroleum (NP) Sierra Leone Limited, is really maintaining very high standards in terms of qualitative service delivery, as well as enhancing effective marketing strategies that have made it very sustainable and admirable to many.
The company is on record for importing and installing latest calibrated pumping machines, which have the capability of displaying the unit prices of certain petroleum products sold such as diesel, petrol, kerosene, thereby enhancing transparency in all its transactions.
“This is a marked departure from what used to transpire in the past, when what was pumped into the tanks of vehicles could not be properly displayed, leaving room for doubts and certain unsavoury games to be played. I am really impressed with how NP is today doing it,” Mohamed Mansaray, a Poda-Poda driver said with some amount of satisfaction.
The company has good tankers that move with fuel to different parts of the country where it is operating. With dedicated and highly motivated members of staff manning the company’s various filling station, dotted in different parts of the country, NP-SL Ltd is efficiently providing good services to its numerous customers and gaining widespread attention for timely qualitative service delivery.
“Offering accessible services to their numerous and cherished customers seems to be well maximized by Management and such is contributing immensely in enhancing visibility of the company,” Mohamed Barrie, an entrepreneur highlighted.
Though in the past some mischievous individuals have attempted to drag the good name of the company to the mud by fabricating falsehoods, history can testify that there has never been any period of time when NP has been named for illegality.
Rather it has been timely tax compliant and operates within the confines of business laws that are binding on companies operating within the country.
The company is held in high regard for availing Sierra Leoneans job opportunities, which have somehow helped in drastically reducing the unemployment rate in the country. If this country was to have had similar businesses owned by purely indigenous shareholders, then this problem of unemployment must have long been a thing of the past.
When reference is made to Local Content, which is a Policy in the country, then NP-SL Ltd stands tall within that realm as nearly all its members of staff are Sierra Leoneans thereby making use of local talents everywhere they are operating. The Local Content Policy is indeed an engine of growth and NP is making full use of it.
With gas as one its marketable products it was thought wise to be producing gas cookers, popularly known as NP Gas, which could be access at their different filling stations. According to investigation conducted NP Gas is cooking-friendly, safe and long lasting. It is going at an affordable price and many are going for it.
In this digital age, moving away from the traditional way of transacting business has now become the norm. It is along such a line that it was thought wise on the part of the shareholders and Management to introduce the use of smart cards. With these cards, customers can procure petroleum products of whatever quantity they do desire.
“Using NP smart card always makes transactions very easy and convenient for me,” a prominent entrepreneur informed.
A marked reality of the company’s viability is evident in its opening of branches in Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, The Gambia and in all of those places it is providing qualitative customer care services to residents, making it a prime priority.
Without any iota of doubt NP-SL Ltd is growing taller and taller as time goes by.
