A member of the Cement Monitoring Committee has disclosed the group is set to inspect the facilities of local cement manufacturers to verify their production capacities.
Currently, the Cement Manufacturers Association of Ghana is resisting moves by the Ministry of Trade to allow importers to bring in cement to augment local supplies.
According to them, there is a surplus of cement on the market, hence, it was not necessary to issue licenses to importers. But the ministry holds a contrary view.
According to a representative of the Cement Monitoring Committee, Samuel Amegayibor, the committee will soon visit the cement factories in an attempt to put the matter to rest.
“As you may be aware, we have a lot of price issue on the market and for us the more the companies are, we believe it will force prices down and there will be competitive pricing on the market and so we felt that maybe more companies should come in – whether import or local production – they should all come in. But then the wisdom behind the petition or the view of the existing producers is that we are already producing more than we need and we also have a surplus of what we produce, so, if that is the case, what is the point in licensing and bringing more? It, therefore, goes to mean that you want to kill the local industry,” he stated in an interview with Class Business’ Napo Ali Fuseini.
“So, since we’ve been set up, one major work of our committee is to look at this issue of surplus or the deficit and so the committee is firmly on the ground. We’ve had several meetings and there are plans in advance to actually go on the ground, we go to the production plants and look at what is happening. Recently the committee went as far as Cote d’Ivoire to look at the systems they have in place to sort of protect their local manufacturers from importers and so they came with a report and we are reviewing it and we will see which part of it will benefit us and will be prudent that we implement it locally,” Mr Amegayibor added.
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
