Wed, 05 Jul 2017 12:17:05 +0000
BENNIE MUNDANDO, IN ACCRA, GHANA
AFRICA must break the tradition of exporting raw material to the rest of the world by transforming itself into a hub for finished products to which other continents will look.
“We have plenty of natural resources to help us achieve transformation,” Ghana country manager for Sahara Energy and Petroleum group Tosin Etomi has observed.
And company corporate social responsibility manager Babatomiwa Adesida says his company’s legacy was premised on its drive to plough back to the communities in which it operated because it believed in improving the quality of life of the people.
Speaking to Zambian journalists in Accra on Monday, Mr. Etomi said it was sad that while Africa produced over 80 percent of the raw materials the world needed, it had remained the major importer of goods from the same materials and said that there was need to change the status quo if the continent was to develop.
He said the continent needed to rise to the occasion by utilising its natural resources to build its economy as opposed to being hugely dependent on finished products from materials which the continent exported.
He said his company was one of a few companies in Africa which believed in utilising local resources and transforming them into finished products which were consumed locally and overseas hence desire to expand its footprints in the energy sector in Africa.
“Africa contributes about 80 percent of the raw material the world needs and these are exported without any value addition and then imported back as finished products and this trend needs to change if we are to grow our economy as a continent. At Sahara, we pride ourselves in that we are truly a Pan African institution which believes that we can do everything as a continent and this is why we source material from within Africa and export our finished products to the rest of the world.
“It does not mean that we have no challenges in our business because the very idea that we are an African company that is getting everything it needs locally and then sell our finished products to the rest of the world is not embraced by the outside world. There are challenges on the way but Africa needs a transformation that will make it competitive and less dependent because God has blessed us with abundant raw material,” Mr. Etomi said.
And Mr. Adesida said his company’s legacy was premised on its drive to plough back to the communities in which it operated because it believed in adding a human face in everything it was doing to improve the quality of life of the people.
He said Sahara was proud to be associated with the challenges the people in its community had and to contribute towards alleviating them by identifying the needy areas and providing resources according to the communities’ priorities.
“In Ghana for example, we have sunk boreholes where the community needs water, we have upgraded schools, helped health institutions especially where there are outbreaks because we believe in ploughing back.
The community is very important to us because even if you have money to invest in a project, you cannot succeed if the community in which you want to operate in rejects you but even when we are doing that, we do it not to show off but to contribute to serving humanity,” Mr. Adesida said.
Sahara produces petroleum products and is involved in power generation and exists in a number of African countries. The company has just come onto the Zambian market.
Over the years the Sahara Group established a norm of excellence in its trading of petroleum products and crude oil, storage facilities, retailing of petroleum products, exploration and production activities and infrastructure development.
