MOULAY MESSAOUD AGOUZZAL

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MOULAY MESSAOUD AGOUZZAL

BUSINESSMAN ,INDUSTRIAL AND MOROCCAN RESISTANT

Moulay Messaoud ben Brahim Agouzzal (1930 – 2019) was born in Souss region. He practiced commerce and industry.

He was still young when he got involved in the Moroccan national movement and struggled in the ranks of the Resistance.

After the independence of his homeland, he contributed as a businessman in the economic construction of Morocco, by establishing one of the largest economic groups in the kingdom during the latest two decades of the last century.

His birth

Moulay Messaoud Agouzzal was born in 1930 , in the Souss region at the east of Agadir . His father Moulay Brahim benBen Moulay Ali and his mother Hadja Lalla Khadija.

His affiliation

He descends from Idrissides Chorfas, children of Sidi Messaoud Ben Ali, whom their lineage ends at  the Imam Ali bnou Abitaleb, cousin of the prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) .

A number of kings of the Alaouite family singled out the children of Sidi Messaoud ben Ali with Cherifian Dahirs ( Certificates ) confirming their lineage and requiring their respect and reverence ,the. The family of Moulay Messaoud keeps until todaythis day three of thesethe following  Dahirs ; the first one was granted by the Sultan Moulay Hassan I in 1890 , the second Cherifian Dahir dated 1901 was granted by the sultan Moulay Abdelaziz, and the third cherifian Dahir was granted in 1939 by the Sultan Sidi mohamed the fifth .

His childhood

Moulay Messaoud lived a normal childhood in his birthplace. He learned in a Quranic elementary school before studying in an antique traditional school.

In 1942, he moved to Meknes where his eldest brother Moulay Ahmed ran the several shops that were left by their late father Moulay Brahim, whowho died in 1936.

At first, the young Moulay Messaoud worked as an assistant to his brother in trade, before becoming independent and running his own business in 1947.

In 1948 ,he married Hajja Fatima Elkadi, and they, may Allah have mercy on them, had six sons and six daughters.

4 -His commercial activity

When he became his own boss, he worked in buying and selling edible oils, then bottling and distributing them between 1947 and 1952, thereafter he expanded his commercial activity to including vegetable oils and legumes and exporting olive oil abroad, especially to Italy before starting manufacturing this oil and entering the world of industry from 1961.

His industrial activity

He forged his path in the industrial field with great self-made. He established his Group factories in several cities such Meknes, Mohammedia, Casablanca, Essaouira, Marrakesh, Guelmim, Tan-tan and Laayoune. He established there production units with a vision of synergy between units and sectors. Thus he gave an added value to Moroccan industry based on modernization, rationalization of costs and energies  and recycling waste materials.

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Since the sixties of the last century, he realized the importance of clean energy, using the olive pomace in his own manufactories and selling it to cement factories and brickyards with productions reaching two hundred thousand tons annually.

He began his industrial march in the  fat products sector in 1961, by establishing oil mills in Meknes to refine vegetable oils and the olive oil production. Afterwards, he added the sapling of olives and the production of olive pomace oil in his factories in Meknes, Essaouira and Marrakesh as well as manufacturing natural vegetable soap and distillation of fatty acid. For all that, he brought the latest machines.

In the early nineties, he installed a unique unit for physical refining of oils, and a unit for fatty acid distillation which was then first and one of a kind in North Africa.

Thanks to the respect of quality standards, Meknes oil factories gained membership in the American Association of Food Industries (AFI) and in the “North American Olive Oils Association” (NAOOA).

In the mills and grains sector, he created “Zerhoun Mills” in Meknes, and the Great Mills in Guelmim “the gate of the Sahara”. These two units were equipped with BÜHLER SUISSE equipments and considered among the most modernized in Morocco.

He entered the world of the chemical and parachemical industry by creating “Maghreb polymer company “ and owning “Chimicolor factory” for dyeing, and “Chimilabo” and “Caplam” for the rubber industries

In the leather industries, he bought in 1973 due to the Morocconization policy, four major tanneries from frenchFrench families, in Essaouira, Mohammedia, Meknes and Casablanca, and rousing their operational and production capacities.

In the marine products industry, he established a unit for the production of fish flour in Essaouira and owned in the same city a factory for fish processing. Then he continued investing in this sector in the  provinces of Sahara after the Green March by setting up a unit of fish flour production and castering fish in Tan tan and Layoune.

In the agricultural field , he invested in various crops mainly the olive grove with an integration policy of both industry and agriculture, using the agricultural production of his three estates in the region of Meknes and Biougra, reaching one thousand hectares .

In the construction sector, he had also a productive activity through the achievement of great residential buildings, and the realization of important subdivisions in Meknes and Sefrou.

In parallel with the modernization and rehabilitation of its industrial units in all sectors,. starting from the early nineties, he established the legal restructuring of his companies under the name of “Holding Moulay Masoud Agouzzal” (H-MMA- GROUP), with a turnover that reached two billion Dirhams, and with a workforce of 4000 people.

An exceptional path in the political field and in the ranks of Resistance

The great events that the world has lived during the forties of the twentieth century, especially the second world war ; and also the triggering in Morocco of the national movement for the independence in 1944 ; All these events had a great influence on the personality of Moulay Messaoud, which was marked further by his membership, while being very young (17 years old) , in the Istiklal Party and then in the ranks of Resistance movement.

And when the “Revolution of the King and the People” broke out on August 20,1953 ,Moulay Messaoud doubled his efforts in the resistance with field participation, supporting some resistance cells and some leaders of the Liberation Army with money, food, clothing and weapons, in the northern regions as well as central, southern and Sahara regions.

His activity in the resistance extended beyond the borders as he supported the Algerian Liberation Front. He was associated with a distinguished friendship with Ahmed Benbella and Mohamed Boudiaf.

He also supported the Palestinian cause, and the food products of his factories were famous in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon.

An exemplary presence in the social field

Moulay Messaoud was a philanthropic man. He was concerned with human development and youth employment along his industrial career, then. his factories remained open to students for training. He helped the engineers and technicians with training grants. Several of them have done their traineeships in the group’s factories, moreover he sent others at his expense for training in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland.

At the level of sport and sponsorship, it is enough to remind that the RAC, a Casablanca football team, played with Chimicolor label, and the CODEM club (Meknes) played with Nesr brand, and the Hassania of Agadir team carried the sign of “Huile Bab Mansour” .

When Morocco submitted his candidacy to host the World cup in 1994 ; he strongly supported this candidacy, and contributed considerably to its campaign, and also organized  a big reception at his home in Mohammedia in honor of the FIFA president at the time JOAO HAVELANGE and his general secretary  Joseph BLATTER.

He consistently supported many charitable foundations of health, artistic and cultural activities. His house was always open to scholars (Oulemas) and civil society associations from all the regions of Morocco.

Ome of His unique national initiatives

As an early nationalist and months before the Green March, he was interested by the question of Moroccan Sahara and its transitions. he watched out the importance of informing the sahrawi actors such notables and businessmen on the development achievements in the northern regions of the kingdom. Therefore and after the royal approval, he organized a tour for them, at his expense, during which they visited several cities and institutions, between July and August 1975.

*During the Green March, he made regional and national contributions. Also, he ensured that the participants in the March from Meknes region (10 thousand people) were supplied during their gathering in the city, and supplied them too at their return to Meknes. At the national level, he contributed to the March’s logistics by placing 25 lorries and number of technicians and executives of his group at the disposal of the state.

He also ensured the supply of some foodstuffs in addition to providing 352 tons of dates (1 Kg per person)

*Thanks to his international economic relationships, he contributed to giving greater opportunities for Moroccan products to enter the American market. To achieve this, he undertook a unique initiative as he was allowed to attend the annual meeting of the AFI council in 1991. The floor was given to him exceptionally, to talk about the development of the food industry in Morocco. And to stand on the truth of what he said, he called the Assembly’s council members to hold their next meeting (1992) in Morocco, and he undertook to bear the expenses of their travel and residency with their wives (250 individuals).

After diplomatic consultation and communication, the meeting was effectively hosted at the “Palais des congrès” in Marrakesh, and on the sidelines of the meeting he held an exhibition in which all Moroccan producers of food industries were allocated pavilions to display their production. And with this initiative, he was among the pioneers in the businessmen diplomacy.

In recognition of his efforts for the sake of his country’s independence as a resistance fighter, and of his contribution  to building its economy as an industrial businessman, Moulay Messaoud won royal satisfaction and was decorated by LATE HIS MAJESTY HASSAN II, the WISSAM (Medal) of satisfaction, second degree, and the order of the Throne of the knight degree in 1989.Then HIS MAJESTY THE KING MOHAMED VI awarded him the Throne WISSAM in the rank of officer in 2008.

His death

Moulay Messaoud , may God have mercy on him, passed away in Casablanca on Saturday 5 October, 2019, and his remains were transported to Meknes for burial in the family cemetery at  Sidi Bouzekry Mausoleum. There he was buried in a massive and moving funeral procession.

In the same day the family of the deceased received a letter of condolence from HIS MAJESTY THE KING MOHAMED VI .

   

References

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