By KENNEDY MUPESENI –
SCIROCCO Enterprises Limited the owners of Oriental Quarries and Amaka Cement plan to invest US$160 million in establishing a cement manufacturing plant in Lusaka.
The plant would have the capacity to produced 2,500 tonnes of cement a day.
Amaka Cement Industries Limited has since been incorporated and only waiting for the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) from Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) to be approved in order to commence production.
Group managing director Moustafa Saadi said during a press briefing in Lusaka that the company had entered into an agreement with a consortium of local and international financiers and investors to run the plant.
“We have entered into an agreement with a consortium to put up a new state-of-the-art cement factory on our premises. This factory will have a capacity of producing 2500 tonnes per day of two grades of cement for local and export markets,” Mr Saadi said.
The agreement had been signed and a feasibility study was being undertaken to establish the viability of the project.
As soon as the exploration work had been finalised then an EIA would be carried out to comply with prevailing laws in Zambia.
It was estimated to take between six and eight months before construction works would begin.
He hoped that the process would be concluded quickly without undue delays adding that the project would improve the economy of the community in terms of employment creation.
Currently the company produces around 250 tonnes of cement to cater for selected clients and input to produce various products such as building materials.
“This project will improve the well-being of the community and the economy of the country by helping to avail good quality cement at affordable prices  because the shortages of the product in the past few years have put a lot of stress on people wanting to build,” Mr Saadi said.
He said this resulted in the high cost of building materials and delayed many projects adding that the new cement plant would help address the problem.
The company looked forward to increased demand for cement that could be used to improve infrastructure all over the country and reduced cost of construction.