Tema, April 4, GNA - Distributors of cement for the Ghana Cement Works (GHACEM) have gone on indefinite strike in protest against irregular supply of cement by the company.

The chairman of the United Cement Distributors Association (UCDA), Mr Felix Nyarko, denied GHACEM management's allegations in an interview that the distributors were responsible for the current high price of cement.

He attributed the high price of the product to management's inability to supply distributors with their cement allocation. He said members of the UCDA have a backlog of allocation from GHACEM and until they receive their allocations they would not resume work. Mr Nyarko said previously the distributors could get their allocation in a few days after processing their documents "but this time it takes us months."

"The supply is irregular even though there has not been disruption in the production because any time there is a problem in production we are informed and we have not received any information from the management, indicating that everything is normal."

Mr Nyarko said members have made payments for about 1.2 million bags of cement for over a month and that this is a loss to the distributors as they normally go for loans to transact their business. For that reason, he said, they would not pay any monies to GHACEM until they receive supplies for the previous payments. 04 April 07