Goli Innocent 
First Bank Plc and Lafarge Africa, the largest cement producer in Nigeria, have met with distributors of cement with the goal of offering them financial assistance to help them deal with the many issues facing the industry.
Sunday Telegraph reports that prominent cement distributors from the six states of the South-west area attended the gathering, which was tagged the “Key Distributors’ Forum.”
One of the financial options, according to First Bank, is a loan product called Temporary Over Draught (TOD), a short-term credit facility created to boost distributors’ working capital.
Speaking at the event, the Group Head of Transaction Banking, FirstBank, Mobolade Ojeahere, said the forum was not only to help the distributors sustain their business but also to ensure the availability of cement in the Nigerian building industry.
Ojeahere said the forum would help the distributors identify the various challenges in the industry and help them make the right choices that would improve their businesses.
He said, “The purpose of this event is to bring our customers who are distributors closer together in a forum where we will engage, discuss some of the challenges we are seeing in the macro-environment in general, how we can work closer with them to identify products and proffer solutions that will enable value creation for their businesses.
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“First Bank will provide the support that will help grow their sales more efficiently in a cost-effective approach, this will enable a trickle-down effect and also create value further down the ecosystem and distributive chain.
“The value achieved is when we come together with our large clients like Lafarge to help them drive their sales and growth through their distributors, is that it engenders the spirit of collaboration and engagement.
“We ensure that we leverage our capacity as trusted financial advisers to harness the data from their ecosystem and take advantage of innovative technology to solve some of the challenges we see in the economy and to create opportunities both for Lafarge and for these distributors.”
Also speaking, the Head, Value Chain Management at First Bank, Bolatito Akiboye, noted that the bank among other things offers low interest rates with zero collateral to cement distributors.
The Customer Relations Manager at Lafarge, Tina Sobola, in her remarks assured that the company would keep supporting cement distributors to help them stay afloat in their businesses.
While noting that the industry has been through difficult times, Sobola said, “The industry has gone through so much in recent times and we will leave no stone unturned in supporting our businesses. There have been three price increments this year.
