Accra, May 16, GNA – The Minister of Trade and Industry, Kobina Tahir Hammond, has directed an immediate reversal of the recent increases in the prices of cement.
He also directed that retail prices of cement were published by all manufacturers in the country to stop the continuous arbitrary increases in major building material.
In a statement issued by the Ministry and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday, May 15, the Minister asked the Cement Manufacturing Development Committee (CMDC) to carry out the instruction without fail.
The statement reiterated the Minister’s earlier call for the Committee to work with cement companies to ensure uniform cement prices nationwide.
That is to be done by adopting a unified cement pricing mechanism similar to the Unified Petroleum Pricing Fund (UPPF) adopted by the National Petroleum Authority for fuel retail in Ghana, the statement said.
The Committee, established under the Ghana Standards Authority (Manufacture of Cement) Regulations, 2023 (Ll 2480), is the regulator of cement manufacture in the country.
It is, therefore, responsible for promoting the manufacturing, wholesale and retail of cement and cement components.
Its membership includes representatives of cement manufacturers, Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana Institution of Engineers, MoTI, and the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation.
GNA