Diamond Cement Ghana has helped to break the monopoly of GHACEM by supplying its products in the sub-region, especially Togo, Benin and Ghana.
It has also helped to stabilise prices of cement in the country.
It has also helped to stabilise prices of cement in the country.
The company has plans to build a port at Aflao to create employment for Aflao and neighbouring communities and its closure will seriously affect the local economy and beyond.
Ufortunately, the increasing influx of substandard and smuggled cement into the country is affecting the production capacity of Diamond Cement Ghana Limited (DCGL).
Currently, the importation of these cements has reduced the daily sales and production of diamond cement from 5,000 metric tonnes to 3,200 tonnes metric tonnes per day.
This means that the company now loses 1,800 metric tonnes of cement to other brands such as SOL-Cement of China, cement imported from Kankan in Iran, and Dangote Cement from Nigeria and Ghana Cement Limited (GHACEM).
Also, the grinding mills which run seven days in a week is shut down after four days because of low demand.
The DCGL is perhaps the only large manufacturing firm in the Volta Region, after the Juapong Textile Limited, a grey-baft firm, reactivated under new ownership, but remaining below the bottom-line.
According to the Mechanical Manager of DCGL, Mr Abedkar Reddy, the reduction in sales was gradually affecting the workers because, “they come to work and there is no work to be done.”
“We might not be able to increase their salaries to meet the change in the economy because we are not getting the profit we need to operate,” he said
Mr Reddy said the company used to load 125 trucks of cement per day to be distributed to other parts of the country but has now been reduced to 75, saying, “the cement is being produced but the demand is not there and this is affecting productivity and management of the company.”
He alleged that the competing products could be enjoying some official support in terms of low taxes at the ports, making those products cheaper, a situation he said would be “grossly unfair” if it was established to be true.
The prices of cement
At Kaneshie Market in Accra GHACEM is sold at GH¢18, Diamond Cement goes for GH¢17 and the Dangote cement is GH¢15.
However, the traders said they had knowledge about other brands of cement in the market but were not selling them because Ghanaians were already used to GHACEM and Diamond cement.
In an interview with Mr Nyarko, a shopkeeper of the Kofi Asiamah Trading Enterprise at Kaneshie, said the patronage of the Diamond cement had gone down because people no longer bought it as compared with other brands.
He could not immediately say what the reason for the low patronage was but said, “It might be due to the current hard economic situation.”
Effect of the Influx of Cement on DCGL CSR
Since the inception of the company in the Aflao-Akporkploe community in the Ketu South Municipality, residents in one way or another had benefited from the numerous corporate social responsibilities (CSR) of the company.
By the end of November 2012, the company since its inception had spent a total of GH¢604,202 in providing services to the people in and around Aflao.
These services ranged from the provision of healthcare facilities, educational and recreational facilities, provision of water, construction of bungalows, road construction, and the provision of sponsorship to organisations within the community.
Mr Reddy said, “How can we continue to give back to the society when we are not making enough money to give out? We are losing a lot every day because someone somewhere is allowing them to operate and they are looking on blindly,” adding that the authorities concerned must act swiftly for the right thing to be done.
Also, he said with the reduction in sales and the dispatch of goods, investment in CSR activities had gone down and this was going to affect the people in the community.
“For example, we provide the people of Aflao with water every day and we are currently building a school in the community and the loss in revenue might affect the completion of these projects by way of completion time,” he added.
Construction of the railway
Mr Reddy said the railway which was being constructed from Togo to Ghana by the company was to be inaugurated by December this year.
When the Daily Graphic visited the site, the workers were busily putting some finishing touches it.
The railway line, when completed, will help the company to convey clinker from Togo to the factory and carry cement back to Togo.
It would also provide easy transportation for workers.
Aside the railway line, Mr Reddy said the company was providing shelter for the customs and immigration officials who would be stationed at one of the entry point used by the border residents.
Background to DCGL
Diamond Cement (Ghana) Limited received its certificate of incorporation on August 3, 1998 and commenced business in 2002 at Aflao in the Ketu South Municipality in the Volta Region
It has a subsidiary at Buipe in the Northern Region, Savannah Cement, producing both clinker and cement.
The company started with one grinding mill with an initial capacity of 600,000 metric tonnes per annum and gradually increased to 1,800,000 metric tonnes per annum with the addition of the second mill in 2009.
The DCGL is currently the only group that produces clinker in the country, hence giving value to local resources. Its plant also complements the government’s industrialisation programme and economic uplift.
Currently, the company is pursuing the latest technology of programmable logic control (PLC) system in the cement production process to maintain consistency in the quality.
It is also the only manufacturing company that has been rated “GREEN” (Very Good) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the AKOBEN rating for three consecutive years since 2010.
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