“MR Victor Eburajalo is the Group Managing Director of Kewalran Chanrai Group, owners of Afprint Plc, a leading textile manufacturing company now closed down as a result of numerous environmental and other difficulties. In this interview with Financial Vanguard, he gave insight into some of the problems that made Afprint to close down.
Your company, Afprint, was a leading textile manufacturing company in Nigeria. Today, the textile plant has been closed down and you are into other businesses. Why did you abandon textile manufacturing?
Well, like I have always said, the problems of textile industry cannot be completely separated from the problems of the real sector. The real sector in this country is on the decline.
Let me say upfront that the economy is growing, that is what we are told. But it is a jobless growth. We have more people on the street today looking for jobs than we had 10 years ago. This is because the real sector is shrinking.
Why is it shrinking? It is purely the cost of production. When we are talking of cost of production, people look at just power. But I want to bring this to the notice of Nigerians that even if you fix power, what of the mode of transportation? This is one country in the world where you transport virtually everything by road.
Who does that in other parts of the world? There is no way any government in this country would have good road because of our climate, especially down south, where you have all the ports. You have to truck products up north and they go through these roads that are not constructed to take these heavy loads. So, if you look at it, we are losing at both ends. . .” More on Vanguard.comngr.com
Photocredit: Textile designs
Founded in 2007, Ladybrille® Magazine is a California based pioneer digital publication demystifying the image of Africans in the west through contemporary African fashion and celebrating the brilliant woman in business and leadership, with an emphasis on the African woman in the diaspora. Our coverage includes stories on capital, access to markets, expertise, hiring and retention, sales, marketing, and promotions.
