Nyati still plans to set up $150m new cement plant

Dar es Salaam. Lake Cement Limited, which manufactures Nyati Cement brand, plans to set up a $150 million (about Sh334,590,000,000) cement plant in Chalinze-Tarawanda, Bagamoyo, a senior official said on Friday.

Speaking to The Citizen during the handing over of a girls’ hostel at Kimbiji Secondary School in Kigamboni District in Dar es Salaam, Lake Cement associate vice president Afroz Ansari said the plan was progressing well. “The plan hasn’t changed,” he said.

Currently, Lake Cement produces 50,000 tonnes of Nyati Cement brand per month from its Kimbiji plant, which is located in Kigamboni, Dar es Salaam.

“The planned plant in Bagamoyo will have the capacity of producing 150,000 tonnes of cement per month,” he said without revealing the actual time framework for the construction and consequent commissioning of the investment project.

According to Mr Ansari, with an annual cement consumption growth rate of between eight and nine per cent, the market is still huge.

Speaking about the hostel, Mr Ansari said the company’s corporate social responsibility policy was mostly directed towards education, health and environmental conservation.

The company – which employs 400 people directly - has spent Sh65 million on building the hostel.

Gracing the hostel handing over ceremony, the Kigamboni Member of Parliament, Dr Faustine Ndugulile, thanked the company and urged students to study hard and improve Kigamboni’s standing in academic performance.

During recently-released Form Four results, Dar es Salaam produced five schools on the list of bottom 10 performers out of which, two were from Kigamboni District.

According to Dr Ndugulie, most students fail to do well because they live far from their schools.

“They spend a lot of time travelling to and from school every day and that is why we decided to construct a hostel and other school accommodation facilities. We believe these will have positive impacts on students’ performance in the future,” he said.