A silent war is
currently brewing between cement manufacturing giant, Dangote Group and Ibeto
Cement Company, the sole importer of bulk cement in the country.
Both companies are at loggerheads over who to blame for the
current glut in the cement industry and what the government should do to
encourage local production of cement.
The Dangote Group
through its spokesman, Anthony Chiejina, Group Head, Corporate Communications,
fired the first salvo when he blamed the glut on the continued importation of
subsidised cement into the country.
But Dr. Ben Aghazu, Executive Director (Strategy and Public
Affairs), Ibeto Cement Company, disagreed with the Dangote Group and accused it
of laying the ground for government to ban the importation of cement into the
country.
In a two-page statement published in a national daily today,
Ibeto Cement berated Dangote Group for being afraid of competition and trying
to instigate the federal government to wade in and stop the importation of bulk
cement.
Ibeto Cement submitted that by its statement on the glut in the
cement market, the Dangote Group, is trying to influence the Federal Government
to cripple Ibeto cement by stopping the importation of cement into the country.
Chiejina maintained in an interview with TheNEWS magazine that
Dangote Group’s Gboko cement plant (BCC) was shut because of a flood of
imported cement, adding that staff had to be put on forced leave, pending when
the situation improves.
The Port Harcourt-based cement bagging company, however, accused
the Dangote Group of trying to influence the Federal Government to raise the
duty and other taxes on imported cement in order to make imported cement
costlier than Dangote Cement and thereby run it out of the market.
Investigation also revealed that a Federal High Court sitting in
Abuja had in an out of court settlement in a suit filed by Ibeto Cement Company
against the Federal Government for unjustly closing its cement bagging plant in
Port Harcourt, ruled that the plaintiff (Ibeto Cement Company) be allowed to
import 1.5 million tonnes of bulk cement per annum for the period of 1 October,
2007 to 30 September, 2017.
According to Ibeto Cement Company: “Dangote Group is also trying
to influence the federal government to, in effect, invalidate the essence of
the court order that authorises Ibeto Cement to import this small amount of
cement until 30 September, 2017, by raising the duty and other taxes on
imported cement so as to make the imported cement more expensive than Dangote
Cement.”
Ibeto cement appealed to the federal government not to be misled
in doing this “because doing so will go against the spirit of the out of court
settlement agreement.”
Ibeto Cement Company also said that the Dangote Group by its
statement, wanted the federal government to ban the importation of clinker or
in the alternative drastically increase the duties and taxes on clinker imports
so as to destabilise cement manufacturers in the Southsouth and maintain a
monopolistic domination of the cement market in Nigeria.
“Time and unfolding events will show that Dangote Group is being
extremely economical with the truth in this assertion. We have it on authority
that the Dangote plant in Gboko (BCC) is programmed to shut down for turn
around maintenance only and will resume production when the maintenance has
been completed.
“Since we are the only importer of bulk cement in the country,
it is clear that Dangote Group is blaming Ibeto Cement for their inability to
eliminate competition in the South,” Ibeto Cement added.
This war of the cement manufacturers is really about who
controls the huge cement market. The Ibeto Cement claims that the Dangote Group
controls 83 per cent of the Nigerian cement market, whereas it controls just
five per cent.
When will this war end?
Source: PMNews
No comments:
Post a Comment