Ignore rumours of cement shortage – Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama on Wednesday appealed to Ghanaians to ignore rumours that there would be cement shortage in the country, a situation that had resulted in panic buying and price increases.

He said government investigations revealed that all cement manufacturing companies were producing to their fullest capacity, and the rumour of such shortages were to throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians.

President Mahama said this when he broke the grounds for commencement of work on a 60-million-Euro cement plant in the Tema Free Zone enclave in the Greater Accra Region.

The project, which is being constructed by CIMAF and ADDOHA PROJECTS in Ghana, has a production capacity of one million tonnes, and would provide 200 direct and 1,000 indirect jobs to Ghanaians.

Apart from this project, ADDOHA Ghana Limited has also signed a memorandum of understanding with government to construct 10,000 social housing units over seven years.

President Mahama also encouraged CIMAF and other cement manufacturing companies to build fully integrated processing plants that would enable them to avoid the perennial importation of some of their ingredients that result in high cost of production.

He said in a bid to make Ghana the best destination of investment on the continent, government had embarked on an expansion programme at the Tema Port to accommodate more businesses.

President Mahama appealed to investors to partner government under the Private-Public partnership programme that would create more jobs and wealth for Ghanaians in the coming years.

The partnership, he said, would concentrate on the provision of a dry dock and maintenance and servicing centres that would attract foreign ships into the country and beyond.

Alhaji Haruna Iddrisu, Minister for Trade and Industry, warned that government would not spare cement manufacturers and retailers who arbitrarily increased the prices of the commodity to the disadvantage of buyers.

He said there was a seeming collusion between manufacturers and retailers, which he described as 'unfair and unacceptable to developers within the country and beyond.

The Trade Minister said government would soon introduce a competition law that would help regulate the sale of the product to investors and ordinary individual developers in the country.

Mr Anas Sefrioui, Chairman of the ADDOHA Group said the establishment of the cement factory was the first industrial investment Morocco was making in Ghana, and would therefore strengthen its relations in other investments.

He said apart from the construction of housing units for Ghanaians, 15 percent of the company's investment would be earmarked for environment protection.