Some rate youth of Aflao yesterday held a street protest against the importation of bagged Dangote Cement from Nigeria.
The protesters, who complained that the importation of the already bagged cement from Nigeria was collapsing local cement industries, including Diamond Cement located in Aflao, called on President John Dramani Mahama, to intervene to address the situation.
They went on a peaceful march from the streets of Denu to the Aflao Customs Park, holding placards with inscriptions such as: ‘Stop the importation of cheap cement’, ‘Mr Minister, please stop this unfair trade practice’, ‘Save Diamond Cement and Ghacem from unfair competition’, ‘Dangote, come and establish a factory in Ghana’, ‘Stop the dumping now’, ‘Ghana Youth need jobs’ and ‘Mr President, Diamond Cement is the only factory left in your World Bank’.
The petition
In a five-page petition to the President and copied to the Volta Regional Minister, the Member of Parliament for the area and the Municipal Chief Executive, the youth lamented that the importation of Dangote Cement was a dangerous economic sabotage which needed to be addressed.
The Spokesperson for the group, Mr. Mengistu Agorbia, said the influx of Dangote Cement had resulted in low patronage of Diamond Cement, causing the company to lose about 40 per cent of its income, while Dangote had reported huge profits, citing the importation of its cement to Ghana as the main driving force.
He said if the trend continued, the youth from the area who worked with Diamond Cement would be laid off, while Dangote continued to create employment for Nigerians.
According to Mr Agorbia, the youth took to the streets because an earlier call to the Minister of Trade and Industry had not received any response.
Investigate concerns
He called on the President, who he said had been an ambassador for the promotion of made-in-Ghana goods, to protect local industries by directing the Minister of Trade and Industry to investigate the concerns raised before they got out of hand.
“We are reminding the President of his promise to create jobs for the youth,” he added.
Dangote Cement, he recalled, had been operating in Ghana since 2010, importing and bagging bulk cement at its terminal in Tema and selling on the domestic market.
The company, according to him, promised to upgrade its Tema terminal so that it could efficiently handle up to one million tonnes of bulk cement per year, as well as build a 1.5-metric tonne grinding plant in Takoradi in 2016 to grind clinker from Nigeria.
“However, contrary to the good intentions, Aflao, in recent times, has been inundated with over 1,000 trailer trucks loaded with already bagged Dangote Cement from Nigeria and, therefore, flooding the market with cheap cement, to the disadvantage of the local cement producing companies,” he added.
Establish a factory
Mr. Agorbia said although the youth were not against competition because it was vital to business growth, the “unfair competition and dumping, as in the case of Dangote Cement, is unacceptable anywhere in the world, not even in its home country Nigeria”.
According to him, the concerns of the youth only went to reiterate what the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) complained about in 2013 over unfair competition from cheap imports which accounted for the slow growth in industry.
“We want to emphasise the point that we do not stand against Dangote doing business in Ghana. We are asking that Dangote build a factory here in Ghana and produce from Ghana to create jobs for the youth, instead of collapsing the few cement companies in the country,” he indicated.
Ghana, he maintained, must learn from Nigeria which, in recent times, had banned certain imported goods and services, including rice, cement, poultry products and textiles, to grow its local industries.
Source: Graphic