A group of young people in Aflao in the Volta Region demonstrated Thursday to put pressure on the Government of Ghana to halt the importation of Dangote Cement from Nigeria.

The youth say the imported product has created unfair competition for Diamond Cement, a local cement manufacturing company in the area. Diamond Cement provides employment for residents in the locality, and most of the youth say the influx of cheaper Dangote Cement into the country, is having a telling toll on Diamond Cement, a situation they say has led to a drop in production, which in turn has led to fears of looming job cuts.

They say Diamond Cement’s production rate has reduced from 5,000 tonnes to 3,000 tonnes per day, as a result.

The youth in the area feel the looming job cuts will affect their livelihood and, thus, are resorting to demonstrations until authorities intervene because several appeals in the past, according to them, have fallen on deaf ears.

A worker of Diamond Cement, who spoke with journalists said: “All countries, even developed ones, always protect their local industries,” and requested government’s immediate intervention.

Owned by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, Dangote Cement is a fully integrated cement company and has projects and operations in Nigeria and 14 other African countries. Its current total production capacity in Nigeria from its three existing cement plants namely Obajana (10.25MMTPA), Ibese (6.0MMTPA) and Gboko (4.0MMTPA) is 20.25MMTPA.

The Obajana Cement Plant (OCP) located in Kogi State is reputed to be one of the single largest cement plants in the world with a combined capacity of 10.25MMTPA.

A fourth line, which adds 3.0MMTPA to the existing capacity, will bring the total capacity of Obajana to 13.25MMTPA by 2015.

Dangote Cement is also the biggest quoted company in West Africa and the only Nigerian company on the Forbes Global 2000 Companies.