Sitting atop a diversified conglomerate as a key player in the last 32 years is vibrant establishment, Sona Group of Companies, Otta. Known and accepted as one of Nigeria’s biggest manufacturing chains, the company have played significant role in the Nigerian manufacturing chains, employer of labour and manpower development. They believe Africa in general can be self-sufficient if investment is encouraged with sound policies.
On the company’s multi- billion naira expansion projects in Nigeria, they give kudos to the present government in assisting industrial growth which, according to Ajai Musaddi, the Group Managing Director Food, Agro & Allied Industries Limited is the basis for speedy growth of the nation’s economy.
The versatile administrator and manager of managers strongly believe government must make policies to help manufacturing, such policies he maintained is still inadequate.
In an exclusive parley with media outfits recently at the company’s office in Sango-Ota, Musaddi, accompanied by the company’s group corporate affairs manager, Soji Fagbemi, Musaddi also added that banks need to be more elastic and lenient in helping the manufacturing sector to encourage nation’s growth.
With strong attention and dedication to churning out quality products and satisfying the quests of their Nigerian customers and largely in Africa, the group believes all these attract some distractions which, according to them they have managed comfortably from existence till date.
Such, the Group MD pointed was a case of a members staff who attempted to take advantage of the company’s subtle nature to make unnecessary claims from the company. “We are aware of such moves but from inception, the group had always attach importance to investing in manpower and of course accountability means a lot to us. So, we will not allow anyone to drag our revered name in the mud by making frivolous claims”.
“Here, we all work as one big family and there is nothing like discrimination. As we speak, there are staff that have spent over 10 years and still working. This because the working environment is comfortable. All these we attach importance to. Even though they are working for their wages, the fact remains that they are adding to the economic development of the nation, this we hold strongly”.
With the chains of businesses the group attends to on a daily basis, Musaddi opined government can give more concession to industries that are doing the right thing and are using local raw materials. They should help them to grow more. Charity begins at home. If government can encourage such industries, Nigeria will be more self-sufficient. And Africa will be self-sufficient because if we have goods here, we can supply neighboring countries and they will depend less on foreign imports.
Musaddi went on, “As we speak, we are investing more in human development because we feel that Nigeria requires the outputs of these wonderful set of people in our group. Although, jobs and population is always growing and again, we have now embarked on export and when you export, you need excess capital. It is necessary for us to export. Nigeria is a big market, but we have those other markets around us. In those other markets, we have people who also need our products for survival”.
With “Global excellence, local upliftment as our strong point in the entire group of companies, we equally attach exemplary importance to producing quality goods because we believe that manufacturers who don’t produce quality goods will definitely not survive. Nigerians are very clever and they are people of taste. They understand the value of goods. If you introduce a good quality product, the packaging is good and presentation is good, Nigerians will buy. Today, imported items are disappearing from the shelves and the sellers are running to us. For instance, many people used to import biscuits from India, but they no longer import because of forex challenges. They come to us and demand that we produce biscuits for them. You can go to some of the Indian shops and you’ll find our goods. So, the demand is very encouraging”.
Regarding capacity utilization and demand, the group has been paying attention to export in the last couple of years and today, it keeps growing. We see everyday growth. They started in Ghana but now, they export to Cameroun, Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire. There is the demand for their goods. They believe it is important for Africans to buy from Africans. Africa, should get out of the mentality that only foreign goods are great.
DIVISIONS IN THE GROUP;
*Shonghai Packaging Industry Limited,
*Sona Industrial Gases,
*Coronation Real Estate Development Limited,
*Shonghai Technologies Ltd
*Food, Afro & Allied Industries Ltd,
*Techblow Nigeria Limited,
*Sona Agro Allied Foods Ltd,
*Euro Global Distributors Forum,
*Coronation Power & Gas Ltd.
COMING NEXT; What members of staff say about the group of companies and why they remain steadfast in productivity. Keep a date.
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