A single bag of cement has not left the Diamond Cement plant since December 2019. This Togolese and Indian capital company went bankrupt for various reasons. Until its closure, it was considered the flagship of Pools’ economy, a nearby region of Brazzaville that was shaken more than once by armed conflict. Business agents and cement traders suffer from this situation.
From our correspondent in Brazzaville,
At the entrance to Mindouli, which turns its back on the highway1, to the left, the motorized and rocky path leading to the Diamond Cement factory is visibly abandoned. The dump trucks and other semi-trailers that transported cement between this site and the station to evacuate it at Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire are nowhere to be found. The factory was closed, to the dismay of Joseph Maléla, a 54-year-old father.
“The closure of this factory has caused us a lot of unemployment,” he says bitterly. The factory employed 375 people and all lost their jobs. “We had many workers: electricians, welders, masons and plumbers who were with us. Today, they are unemployed like the rest of us, ”Maléla describes.
After the closure, Joseph Maléla believes that he has not received any good compensation. “It is very true that we have received compensation. But how ! Compensation is not up to expectations. For my part, I received 498,000 CFA francs (759 euros). I worked for four and a half years and had never had time off, he says.
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Poor market research
With an installed capacity of 700,000 tons per year, Diamond Cement, which required an investment of 60 billion CFA francs including 35 billion in bank loans, was hit due to poor market research, according to government agencies. Congo had a share of 15%.
Banks began demanding interest payments after Diamond Cement was still far from making a profit, a local authority said. The presence of the cement plant was a guarantee of socio-economic stability for Pool, a post-conflict region, according to analyst Alphonse Ndongo. “It must be recognized that a cement society or other society, in an area that has felt conflict, makes it possible to stabilize the social. Such a society as this is a real reservoir of jobs and even redistribution of income, he emphasizes.
Consequences of the closure
The consequences of the closure are many. “At the level of the general economy, there is a huge loss of taxes and everything that comes with it, especially paraphiscality. All these things mean that Congo, from all points of view, is the loser. We’re losing a business, parafiscality. Then, in stabilizing the peace in the pool, we also lose something, says AlphonseNdongo.
Before Diamond Cement in the Pool, a Moroccan company also closed Cimaf in order not to be able to withstand the competition.
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