By Etuka Sunday
The management of Dangote cement Plc has concluded plans to increase the capacity of its 42.5 cement to 9mtpa by July this year.
Speaking one after another at the 2013 Annual General meeting (AGM) of the Company in Lagos, the shareholders passed a vote of confidence on the management, saying it has exhibited a sense of patriotism and concern for the users of the product.
This is just as the Chairman of the Company; Aliko Dangote explained that the expansion strategies embarked upon by the management would culminate in an increase of additional 9 million metric tonnes of cement capacity.
Shareholders lauded the Dangote Cement management for rising to the occasion by raising the bar with the 42.5 and 52.5 grades recently rebranded against the background of the incessant building collapse across the nation.
They stated that with the upgrade of the cement from the staple of Dangote Cement Plc, it would now be cleared that any incident of building collapse anywhere could no longer be traced to the quality of cement, at least the one produced by Dangote.
The Company Chairman disclosed that its expansion drive would increase capacity and add additional 9 million metric tonnes, expressing satisfaction that the importation of cement into the country has continued to thin out with an estimate of just 1.1m metric tonnes imported in 2013 down from 1.9m in 2012.
He vowed that the company would stop at nothing to expand because presently most the Nigeria’s neighbours are importing cement from Far East. “And we are confident that Nigeria’s cement will prove more attractive than the imports, particularly within the 15 member ECOWAS.”
To stabilize the price of cement and free the consumers from the profiteering middlemen, Dangote, said that his company would intensify direct-to-consumer deliveries.
Insisting that his company has not increased the price of cement, he explained that though prices of most inputs into cement production has gone astronomically high but that his organization is committed to making the commodity available to consumers at the most reasonable price.
