Sikander Lalani is a Ugandan industrialist and founder of Roofings Group, a family-controlled manufacturing business that has grown from a small roofing operation into one of East Africa’s leading steel and construction-materials manufacturers.

Born in Kampala in 1944, Sikander Lalani initially trained as a doctor and worked in histopathology in the United Kingdom. He later abandoned medicine for business, moving to Rwanda in the 1970s, where he began with electronics and tyre distribution before turning to manufacturing.

From trader to Rwandan industrialist

Sikander Lalani’s first businesses in Kigali included an electronics dealership and tyre distribution. In 1976, Japanese business associates encouraged him to manufacture roofing materials locally rather than rely on imports.

With $1 million in financing from the Rwanda Development Bank, backed by the World Bank, Sikander Lalani established a roofing factory in Kigali in 1978. The venture marked his transition from trader to manufacturer and laid the foundation for his career in steel. He also became involved in Tôlerie Industrielle du Rwanda (TOLIRWA), a Rwandan industrial company in which he was a shareholder and director general.

The 1994 turning point

Sikander Lalani’s Rwandan business career was interrupted by the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. He left Rwanda for Tanzania and later moved to Uganda, where he rebuilt his industrial ambitions almost from scratch. Rather than abandon manufacturing, Lalani used the move as the starting point for a new venture.

The company he established in Uganda in 1994 would eventually become Roofings Group, consisting of three separate factories in Uganda, with steel mills, plastics manufacturing and regional markets across East and Central Africa. He later built a steel-manufacturing conglomerate in Uganda, with installed production capacity of 72,000 metric tonnes and more than $80 million in revenue annually.

Rebuilding in Uganda

In 1994, Sikander Lalani established Roofings in Uganda with an initial investment of about $2 million. He acquired land at Lubowa and built a factory that began operations in 1995 with roughly 60 employees.

Roofings initially focused on roofing sheets and other steel products before steadily expanding into wire products, nails, reinforcement materials, hollow sections and other construction products.

The strategy was to manufacture more locally and reduce dependence on imported finished materials.

That approach eventually took Sikander Lalani deeper into steel production.

Building a vertically integrated steel business

The establishment of Roofings Rolling Mills at Namanve marked a major shift in the group’s evolution.

Backed in part by financing from the International Finance Corporation, the operation expanded Roofings’ capabilities from downstream construction products into steel processing. Japanese steel interests also became partners in the business, continuing a relationship that traced back to Lalani’s early manufacturing venture in Rwanda.

Roofings subsequently diversified into plastics through Roofings Polypipes and Irrigation Systems, adding pipes and related construction and irrigation products to its portfolio.

The group also expanded regionally, serving markets across East and Central Africa, including Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A return to Rwanda

Sikander Lalani’s business eventually re-established a presence in Rwanda, decades after he had left the country during the genocide.

Through Roofings’ regional expansion, the group returned commercially to a market that had once been central to Lalani’s entrepreneurial career.

The return added another layer to a business story defined by Rwanda: it was where Lalani first became an industrialist, where he lost his operating base in 1994 and, years later, where his rebuilt company again found a market.

From steel processing to deeper integration

Sikander Lalani’s strategy has increasingly focused on controlling more of the steel value chain.

Roofings moved into rolling, galvanising and colour coating, allowing the group to produce higher-value steel products locally rather than importing them.

The next step has been even more ambitious. Roofings Rolling Mills has received a mineral exploration licence as the group explores opportunities to source and process iron ore domestically, potentially taking its business from steel processing closer to raw-material production.

The $125 million Namanve expansion

That strategy reached a new milestone in August 2026 when President Yoweri Museveni inaugurated Roofings’ Cold Rolling Mill Complex Phase IV at Namanve.

The project represents an investment of approximately $125 million and adds cold rolling, galvanising, colour coating and edge-trimming capabilities. The facility is designed to produce higher-value steel products while strengthening Uganda’s domestic manufacturing capacity.

The complex was developed with technology supplied by Italian engineering company Danieli, further upgrading Roofings’ production capabilities.

The investment also underscores the scale the group has reached. Ugandan government figures show Roofings contributed more than UGX191 billion in taxes in 2025, generated approximately UGX229.6 billion in exports and supported more than 2,200 jobs.

From Kigali to Namanve

Lalani’s career has been defined by reinvention.

He moved from medicine to trading, from trading to manufacturing, and from a roofing factory in Kigali to an increasingly integrated steel business in Uganda. The 1994 genocide forced a dramatic break with his first industrial venture, but it did not end his manufacturing ambitions.

More than three decades after rebuilding in Uganda, the inauguration of the approximately $125 million Cold Rolling Mill Complex Phase IV represents the latest stage of that journey.

What began with a small roofing factory in Rwanda has evolved into a family-controlled industrial group seeking to control more of the steel value chain, from raw materials and processing to finished products for Uganda and the wider African market.