The Dangote Cement Plc has called on government to use cement concrete in road construction in line with global best practice.
The company said concrete roads are more durable, safes lives and cheap in the long run.
Speaking at the Abuja Housing Fair, Training Manager of the Obajana Plant Haruna Adinoyi said Nigeria will benefit more by using concrete.
Meanwhile, he also attributed the current price of cement in the market to the poor state of infrastructure in the country which has impacted on the cost of production.
Mr Adinoya said: “Because of the state of our infrastructure, manufacturing in Nigeria is still very expensive; you have to install your own power plant, construct road and in our case even construct dams for our water supply and all these add to the cost of production.”
He stressed that what we are witnessing as a country is a systemic problem, noting that cement prices cannot just come down when the price of other imputs are high.
“We brought the price drastically down at some point but because of what happened to the economy, we were forced to go back up,” he added.
He however said as their companies continue to increase their installation capacity over time, the economy of large scale production will force the price down.
According to Adinoyi: “With good governance, there is the tendency that infrastructure development will get attention and therefore the overall cost of manufacture and cost of doing business in Nigeria will begin to come down and that will definitely reflect in the price of cement.”
He urged government to give serious thought to the use of cement for the construction of roads in the country.
He said: “Concrete roads may be about 15 to 20 percent more expensive than asphalt road but in the long run, in terms of durability, it is better because the maintenance cost is near zero.”
