Lafarge Africa says it has a strctured plan to increase its cement production capacity to 16million tonnes by 2020.
The Out-going Group Managing Director of the company, Guillaume Roux who will be replaced by Peter Houdnut, who spoke on diverse issues in the cement and construction industry disclosed at the farewell party in his honour to Vanguard that the production capacity he is leaving behind for his predecessor is 8 ½ million tonnes, but was optimistic the company has laid down plans to expand it to 16million tonnes by 2020.
He noted that 2 ½ tonnes will be added to bring the capacity to 11million tonnes in 2016, and that the company will progressively by 2017 and 18 add another 2 ½ tonnes and continue to expand until it hits above the 16 million tonne mark by 2020.
“We will continiue our expansion, then by the end of 2020 we would have doulbled our capacity to more than 16 million tonnes. We are major player in the industry, all over the country with presence in the South West, East, Ashaka, calabar and in the North.”
Roux who said that during his tenure he was able to transform WAPCO Cement to Lafarge Africa , by putting together all its resources in two companies which will enable us reach the 16 million tonne by 2020, which also combines South Africa. “This combination is transformation. It has been heard as one of the actions in the corporate world in 2015, in Africa.”
Building Collapse:
Speaking on building collapse he said: “cement is not the cause of building collapse, the cause of building collapse is the bad practices in construction and this is why we are teaming up with all the engineers and all the actors in the construction sector to help them put in place proper concrete, design and supervision. There’s need for much stronger supervision of the job cites in the country, so if engineers follow laid down procedure it will lead to stronger building.” He stressed.
Continuing, he stated; “so that is why we put that very high in our agenda as a company, to promote good building practices, to educate the public, the builders and also anybody on the street that wants to have a house, so that he will know he requires a proper engineer and contractors.”
New products:
We have the widest product range in the country, much wider than our competition, we sell different kinds of cement for different applications, for store building, for high rise buildings and also for individual homes. So we have these products; the superset for the block maker, we are the first to develop ready mixed concrete, the more people use the ready mixed concrete, the more assured their buildings will be.
