Congestion at the Douala Seaport has been identified as one of the factors paralysing the commencement of production by the composite cement plant owned by Nigerian business magnate, Dangote.

The General Manager of the Dangote Cement Factory, Abdullahi Baba, had, on June 24, 2014, told reporters during a visit to the site that the cement factory will begin production in August 2014.

However, after the August deadline elapsed, without the commencement of production by the plant, this reporter, on September 18, contacted the GM to find out what was delaying the beginning of production and when Cameroonians will start using cement produced by the Dangote plant.

The GM responded that; “Due to the serious the problem of congestion at the Douala Port, it was impossible for the ship transporting a stock of equipment that the company imported. When the ship waited off-shore for over a week, in vain, it was forced to off-load the equipment at the Port of Cotonou in Benin Republic. This made the company incur some losses as some of the equipment got damaged in the process of transporting them to Douala.”

According to Abdullahi Baba, with the efforts of various stakeholders being put in place to decongest the port, there is hope that the Dangote Cement plant will soon begin production.

Meanwhile, the current use of the Douala main port by Dangote Cement Cameroon SA, is temporary, as the company is expected to have its own exclusive area for off-loading and loading at the Douala Port by next year. A few months ago, the company obtained official documents to construct a jetty.

Baba remarked that construction work on the jetty is ongoing, but regretted that the congestion at the Douala Port is also delaying the arrival of some equipment and materials for the jetty project.

The Dangote Cement Plant, upon completion, would have swallowed a colossal sum of over FCFA 65 billion, and the factory will have a production capacity of 1.5 million metric tons of composite cement per annum.