Africa-Press – Liberia. The Salala Rubber Corporation (SRC), a company that is inarguably one of the truest friends of Liberia has now stepped up its game of uplifting Liberians from down the ladder to top posts within the corporation.
This is a new paradigm that the company has adopted to put Liberians in charge of running the company.
This is evidence by the recent employment of three young Liberians in trusted positions.
One of the three is Mr. Glenn Toto, a great-grandson of the late Quemelin Toto, founder of the famous Totota City in Bong County.
Mr. Toto was elevated recently to head the Finance Department of the company. Before his ascendancy, this post had been occupied by only expatriates since the company was set in up in Liberia nearly 62 years ago.
Mr. Toto, an Accountant by profession will help the company to formulate its annual operational budget, analyze everyday financial activities provide advice to upper management on future financial plans, prepares financial reports, monitor accounts, and prepare financial forecasts.
He will also be expected to control line expenditures making sure that they are in line with the budget. Basically, he is charged with having oversight on all financial matters of the company.
Before he joined SRC, Mr. Toto, who has worked with a number of large corporations, began his professional career as Accountant Assistant at the Liberia Coca Cola Bottling Company (LCCBC), a subsidiary of the Equatorial Coca Cola Bottling Company (ECCBC), which is present in 13 countries. He left LCCBC after a five-year stay with them and has risen to become one of the Coca-Cola company’s key accountants.
Mr. Toto also worked for Baker Tilly Liberia a certified public accountant firm for four years, where he worked on so many audit engagements ranging from commercial banks, rubber industries, mining industries, NGOs, and public corporations.
When he joined SRC in 2018, he was recruited as an Internal Auditor, and based on his performance; he was hired as Financial Comptroller on March 1, 2019, assigned in the Accounts Department.
“Due to my involvement in terms of financial management, the company thought it wise to push me, a young Liberian to head the finance department as a key team player,” Toto said.
He further stated that he believes in teamwork and working for the benefit of all and that of the company. He urged his colleagues in the Finance Department to do all and maintain their good integrity. Mr. Toto extends thanks and appreciation to God, his predecessor ( Mr. Alex Minger), and his current boss ( Mr. Aluppy Shanid, General Manager) for reposing the confidence in him to serve the company in a very strategic position.
Another young Liberian recruited into the Accounts Department is Mr. Joe Bennie. Bennie was hired as Junior Accountant.
Bennie is a beneficiary of SRC’s scholarship program. He started his education at the company-run elementary and junior high school.
“I see myself providing my services to the corporation for a long period of time. I have come to give back. My interest is to see the company grow bigger and bigger,” Bennie said.
Basically, in his role, he is going to be responsible for assisting the senior accountant and the financial manager in the day-to-day activities of the corporation.
Among the new hires that were made recently; one of them probably stands out. The Corporation looked within its concession areas and brought on board Ms. Amanda Sombai as Data Filing Clerk. This is another position in time past that was not given to women. Occupants of this post were mostly men.
But with SRC’s new policy of empowering locals, Ms. Sombai was selected among many others who had applied for this post when its vacancy was advertised.
Ms. Sombai was born and bred in Flomo Town, a community within SRC’s concession area.
A graduate of the Booker T. Washington Institute (BWI), Kakata, Margibi County, she began her education in the SRC’s School System.
She stated that working with SRC is like a dream come true for her as it had been her desire all along to work with the rubber company.
Being one of few females in the department, Ms. Sombai said she doesn’t do her work looking at her gender. “I like challenges,” she said and added that she tries to file in the data way ahead of the deadline.
The 21-year-old praised the SRC for its new policy of providing employment opportunities for locals, including residents, that it will help her and others to further their education having earned some money.
She thanked SRC’s management for reposing confidence in her ability to do the work and hoped that more of her friends can be employed, too, by the company.
In keeping with its gender equity policy, the company remains very sensitive to it by providing females the right to equal employment opportunities alongside their male counterparts.
Ms. Gloria Sammy is one of many females benefitting in that direction when she was hired by the SRC management to work in the accounting department as a payroll clerk on May 1, 2021.
Ms. Sammy prior to joining SRC worked as an intern just before her graduation from the Booker Washington Institute, BWI in 2019.
“I came here as an intern from the Booker Washington Institute, and I can probably say based on my excellent performance during my internship here with the Salala Rubber Corporation at the time was what might have caused them to hire me”, MS. Sammy said.
