Plateau’s moribund companies rising again
With over N300 million sunk into the 25-year-old moribund soft-drinks producing Plateau Highland Bottling Company (HBC), it did not take long for the firm to get back on its feet.
About a year after the Plateau State government, through the Plateau Investment and Property Development Company (PIPC), entered an agreement with foreign based producers of assorted drinks, Hummer Drinks Ltd, Highland Bottling Company has commenced production of Gove Water, in both sachet and bottle variants.
The company, once a pride of the state, went moribund in 1992, 12 years after it was incorporated as a limited liability company. However, through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with Hummer Drinks Ltd, Governor Simon Bako Lalong struck an agreement that gave the foreignbased company 67 per cent equity holding and the PIPC 33.
Plateau State once prided itself as the industrial hub in the North Central but many say poor management, market changes and interests, as well as years of ethno-religious crises brought commercial activities to its knees in the state. After the Jos ultra-modern market was gutted by fire about 15 years ago, other industries such as the Bokkos Fertilizer Blending Plant (constructed by the Joshua Dariye administration but abandoned by the Jonah David Jang administration) had also packed up.
The PIPC, which has investments in Highland Bottling Company, JIB, the fertilizer blending plant and other enterprises in the state, also finally went comatose.
Before this, the 66-year-old Panyam Fish Farm, one of the biggest in Nigeria, had equally crumbled due to what many saw as lack of ingenuity of past governments in the state.
However, barely two years into his administration, Governor Lalong is resuscitating ailing industries in the state. The return of HBC is seen by many as Lalong’s ability to keep a promise he made before he was elected as governor. He had continually stressed his intention to revitalise ailing and non-functional companies in the state and has so far taken action on the Jos main market, HBC, Panyam Fish Farm, Bokkos and Fertilizer Blending plant.
The chief executive of Jos Business School who is also chairman, Technical Committee of the PIPC, Chief Ezekiel Gomos, said there is potential for significant growth in the Plateau State economy, adding that the PPP agreements which the government entered into with private companies was best for the state.
Gomos explained: “The government is trying to create an enabling environment for the private sector to grow. If you look at what has happened, there has been a significant increase in the private sector economy in the last 12 months in Plateau State. About six new hotels have been built and commissioned in the last one year.”
He said private businesses are taking advantage of the peace and security in the state and, “The fact that government has cut by 50 per cent the cost of land charges and C of O’s are now being issued is a big plus. This is likely going to create a multiplier effect.”
Similarly, the Panyam Fish Farm, reputed to be Nigeria’s largest, with an estimated capacity to produce 4.9 tons of fish and 10 million fingerlings annually, is gearing up for recovery as an MoU for its resuscitation was signed last year with Solbec Ltd.
Though commendable steps, some residents of the state still describe Lalong’s economic policies as great only on paper as they are yet to materialise and have direct impact on the citizens and the state’s economy.
Alhaji Sani Agege, a business man in Jos, said though the impact of the government’s policies are yet to manifest on small scale businesses, reviving the companies competition.
He said that “the real impact will be felt when the companies begin to source for their raw materials locally because that is one of the ways their impact can trickle down and boost the state’s economy.” He, therefore urged that the companies be made to buy their raw materials locally.
While calling for patience, the Technical Committee chairman, Chief Gomos, noted will create that investment decisions are like planting trees which usually takes time to mature.
Governor Lalong on the other hand is optimistic that the impact of his policies is already being felt, assuring that with the fertilizer blending plant back on its feet and the employment of 126 youths by the HBC, that would translate into revenue for the state as the workers in company tax and job opportunities.
At the HBC factory, our correspondent was walked through the filler machines, which the workers filled bottles with beverages before they are moved to the crowner, which attaches the cork.
The beverages to be produced at the newly resuscitated HBC are all non-alcoholic which include energy drinks, the Gov Table water and Gov malt as well as soft drinks that come in Apple, orange, cola, lemon, mango, pineapple, ginger and zobo flavours.
The Managing Director of the company, Joseph Atabo Umoru, said, “We are 100 percent ready with the malt and soft drinks and have applied to NAFDAC and they will give us the parameters of the quantity of samples they want us to provide. We have ordered for four million bottles so the bottle version of the malt and soft drinks will be ready as soon as we get the NAFDAC number.”
Umoru said during the 25 years the factory was abandoned, the PIPC protected the machines from vandals.
“Most of the machines were intact; we only refurbished them through servicing, replacement of solvent parts with new ones, and installation of new machines and production lines,” the MD said.