Dangote invests $100 million on new cement plant in Takoradi

• Posted on May 28, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Multi-billion dollar company Dangote is investing over $100 million in the construction of a new cement plant in the Western regional capital Takoradi by the end of this year.

The facility which will be the second by the company since its entry into Ghana few years ago will also come with its own power generation plant.

Interacting with parliamentarians, managing director of Dangote Ghana, Tor Nygard said the new plant which will have the capacity to produce over 1.5 million tonnes of cement is part of the company’s strategy to expand and meet growing demand in Ghana and across West Africa.

“We are going to start later this year and set up other cement plants in Takoradi. It will be a grinding operation, so we will import clinker and grind it,” Mr. Nyard said.

He said the plant will have a 1.5 million tonnes capacity and they are very optimistic about the market and are ready for the competition.

“We are not afraid of the competition, customer service and customer focus are very important to us. The most important for us is the electricity supply and we are actually seeing an improvement in this lately,” he added.

He complained that they were concerned with the rate of exchange as they will be importing raw materials.

But sales and marketing manager of Dangote Ghana, Joseph Abor is warning the cement industry in Ghana may collapse if steps are not taken by government to address what he describes as low quality bagged cement, imported from China into the country.

He said they could have done better with pricing if they were given a better tax policy like the others are doing.

Mr. Abor added that a lof of the other companies over invoice whatever they are bringing into the country so they can enjoy tax rebates.

He said government should pay attention to the industry so it does not end up the way the textile industry did with lots of low-quality products flooding the market.

– joyonline