Toyota Ghana updates skills of garage operators

TOYOTA GHANA Company Limited (TGCL), local distributors of Toyota vehicles in the country, has held its 2011 garage seminar for  mechanics and garage operators within the Greater Accra Region.
The annual event is aimed at updating the skills of  garage operators on Toyota repairs and to also create awareness, among the mechanics, of the need to encourage the use of genuine Toyota spare parts.
 The General Manager of TGCL, Mr Eric Darko,  in his address, recounted the 2010 success stories of the company to the garage operators and added that Toyota could not have chalked up those successes without the genuine support of its stakeholders, including the mechanics.
Last year, the company emerged the number one company on the Ghana Club 100 awards, an award scheme that positions the outstanding performance of companies in the country within a 100 numerical range. The company also maintained its position on the ‘Hall of Fame’ during the Chartered Institute of Marketers awards.
The   General Manager  said the company was bent on keeping the track record it earned in the previous years and therefore called on the mechanics to continually support the company in all ways possible.
 Toyota Ghana has for sometime now been battling with the influx of counterfeit Toyota spare parts into the country and its subsequent high patronage among the brand’s users and mechanics as well. 
According to the Spare Parts Manager at the TGCL, Mr Leslie Ohene, parts such as oil and fuel filters, spark plugs, drive belts, brake parts, shock absorbers, ball joints, clutch and other body parts were the highly counterfeited spare parts.
 He, therefore, called on the garage operators to  educate and encourage their clients  to use only genuine Toyota parts in repairs since it is the only surest way to undo the counterfeit market in the country. 
Participants in the seminar also received some technical training in the use of lubricants  from officials of the oil market company Total.
 The participants called on the management of Toyota Ghana to frequently organise training seminars for their apprentices as a means of updating them on the modern Toyota models on the market.
All the participating garages were given certificates of appreciation for their continuous use of genuine Toyota spare parts during 2010. Four garages, however, received plaques from the company as “awards for their outstanding performance, commitment and continuous use of genuine spare parts in 2010.”