Nigeria's major cement manufacturer, Dangote Cement Group has raised the alarm over the danger that the continued glut in the cement market portends danger for investment in the sub-sector and the economy at large.
The cement group is worried that if no concrete action is taken by the Federal Government to address the situation, the cement industry may go the way of the textile industry.
Following the glut in the market, Dangote Cement said its Benue Cement Company (BCC )in Gboko, Benue State, which was closed down about a month ago, will remain shut.
The company indeed feared that the billions of dollars invested in the establishment of its plants across the country may go down the drain, if steps are not taken urgently to check the glut.
President, Cement Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (CMAN) and Special Adviser to President of Dangote Group, Mr. Joseph Makoju, lamented that Dangote Cement alone has inventory of 950, 000 tonnes of cement and clinker- an intermediary product in the production of cement- that could not be processed and sent to the market due to the fact that imported cement had flooded the market, displacing the locally produced ones.
According to Makoju, "apart from Dangote's BCC, which is currently shut, other Dangote plants including Obajana Cement plant and Ibese plant have also accumulated shocking volumes of clinker, which cannot be converted to cement and taken to the market for lack of capacity in the market to take up the products."
He said the Nigerian cement industry faced peculiar challenges, which made it difficult for cement produced in the country to compete with those supplied from countries where manufacturing is heavily subsidised.
"The ex-factory price of cement in Nigeria has not changed in the past 4 years, it has been around N1,350 but transportation cost has gone up more than any country in the world and also the price of diesel and LPFO have been going higher making it difficult for manufacturers to get the products to consumers at lower prices," Makoju explained.
He lamented that no fewer than 2,500 people employed directly and indirectly have been affected by the on-going crisis induced by the severe glut that has hit the market.
Makoju warned that more problems would result if the crisis was allowed to linger and more people would be thrown into unemployment as factories continually shut down more production lines.
Speaking on behalf of CMAN, Makoju revealed that manufacturers have suggested to the Federal Government some measures that could be taken to address the situation.
He pointed out the need to impose maximum duty on all imported cement to discourage influx of foreign cement into the country to displace local ones.
Makoju added that CMAN under his leadership has also called on the government to introduce sizable civil construction projects which will necessitate the purchase high volumes of cement therefore creating the much-needed space in the market to take up all the excess cement in the market.
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Nigerian consumers can not for ever play grand-father to overfed and spoilt industrialists and Billionaires whose wealth drain the blood of sufering citizens. Capitalist ideals genarate it's existence and justfication through the market forces while the free market interplay is inherently dynamic with equallibrum in allocation of resource . State intervention only changes the equation and bring in gross ineficiency and disruption. It is hard why the nation have deen dogged by this calculated grand-fathering from Badangida to Whoever willed the economic progress of all citizens to nfavour single or group of individuals from restricted import Liocene to special import License allocation A specific case could not explain is the corruptrion that favoured a transportion company over coal mine at Enugu some years ago and Ibrahim Babangida will recall this event. While coal mined from Nigeria was almost abandoned at the point of production , same commodity was imported by Federal authorities for probably shipment to Northern part of the country . Meanwhile the transprtation company bat Ikeja who was awrded the contract to move the imported stuff had not enough trucks to do the allocation and the whole nation had to wait for used tractors imported from Germanybe cleared for that company . A lawyer friend and I saw the convuy streaming across Ikorodu Road each was individually driven by driver when I asked to know the driving reason to bring in such endless convey before information came to us that the trucks were specifically imported to clear the backlog of imported coal waiting overtime for delivery to the North That has been the character in Nigeria ever. This lopesided intervention have been directed to regulate freedom of interplay to inhance market forces,rather it has always put importers and marketer in the fore-forefront , especially the control of largescale imporatation to perpetuate the culture of sellers market which remove the competitive edgein the system . Up to this age surprisingly , not a single voice in the nation have raised alarm to this disengineous strategy to manipulate the economy out from utilitarian end result . It is very hard for me or anybody for that matter to explain the economic wisdom to give single coporation or individual State sanctioned monopoly to import and distribute essential commodity to a market of 160 million citizens with culpable corrupt intentions . The regime that collaborate with such devilish plot does not deserve to see the light of the day. You manipulate economic forces to behave in ways that add value to tricle down economics, such benevolent intervention only disrupt irrevocable hands of nature and tilt the balance of national activity away from intended utilitarian objecitve .It is anachronistic, disengineous and delibrate plot to create billioneers outfrom citizen's blood . At the very best, it is anti-national in character .