Without the slightest idea that Vision 2030 delegates, concerned about the health hazard CEMENCO brings, would call for its relocation from Monrovia to Bensonville, the local cement giant disclosed yesterday evening that it was erecting a new US$20 million "state-of-the-art" cement manufacturing plant.
The new plant, according to Counselor James Doe Gibson, is due to be completed and ready for operations by December this year. It will answer all the pollution concerns anybody in the area may have about cement fumes polluting the densely populated surrounding areas, including Jamaica Road, New Georgia, Freeport community, etc.
The Daily Observer personnel had just left the closing session of a two-day National Visioning Consultation in New Georgia, in Montserrado County's District 13, where delegates had raised the alarm about the cement fumes emitting hourly from CEMENCO's plant, causing a great health hazard to the people of the surrounding area. The delegates called for CEMENCO's immediate re-location to some distant place within Montserrado. They named Bensonville, ancestral home of the Tolbert and other Montserrado families.
The delegates complained that the cement fumes were affecting the eyes of many local residents, and causing people to contract cataracts. The delegates said the best solution was the relocation of the plant to a place where there would be enough space and not too many people, and Bensonville or some other rural community in Montserrado would be best suited for the move.
One delegate, addressing the Consultation in the Gabriel Kpoleh Public School in New Georgia, cautioned his colleagues that CEMENCO provided a lot of jobs and income for the community and a re-location of the company could lead to economic disaster for the area.
Another delegate wondered whether an alternative solution could not be found, so that the plant would remain in its present location, but with the pollution "minimized."
Delegates said if that were possible, then that could be a solution to the problem.
En route from the Consultation, Daily Observer personnel called CEMENCO's Accounts Manager, Ms. Waito Davis, a Tigress from the Booker Washington Institute (BWI), and informed her of the Vision 2030 delegates' concerns about the company's pollution problem.
It was at that point that Mrs. Davis quickly informed the Daily Observer that there was absolutely no need to worry. She then disclosed that the company was erecting the brand new plant that would definitely take care of the pollution problem.
"We ourselves who work here are at risk, and the company knows that," she told the Daily Observer. "So the company is building this new plant that will take care of all the pollution problems," she added. She then suggested the newspaper contact the company's Administrative Manager, Counselor James Doe Gibson, for further clarification.
It was Cllr. Gibson that told the newspaper of the cost of the new factory, US$20 million, which he described as a "state of the art" plant. It would, he said, "eliminate all the pollution we currently experience from the old plant currently in use." That plant, he told the newspaper, "is over 40 years old and causing us a lot of money. The fumes you see in the air during operations, is nothing else but cement. Each speck of the fumes is cement that we are losing. The new plant would cut out those losses completely, save us money and maintain a clean environment," Counselor Gibson asserted.
He added, the new plant is being constructed very near our cafeteria. If it were not pollution-free we would not be placing it there," he said.
As to the Vision 2030 delegate's suggestion that the plant be re-located to Bensonville, Cllr. Gibson such a move would make a bag of cement "very costly. You're talking about a price escalation of over US$25 per bag," he said. "That would be too costly for anybody."
Counselor Gibson then told the newspaper that cement factories throughout West Africa are situated around ports. The reason: it is far cheaper to move your clinker and other materials from a nearby port than from elsewhere.
"It costs us US$33 per truck to transport our clinker, the main ingredient for cement manufacture, from the Free Port of Monrovia. If we had to bring it from Brewerville, the cost per bag of cement would be US$20. That would be prohibitive. It would be even costlier transporting it to a further distance, such as Bensonville," he added.
Counselor Gibson assured the Vision 2030 delegates and the entire Liberian public that CEMENCO is well aware of the pollution problem, a problem which, he emphasized, would soon be a thing of the past.
The Vision 2030 District 13 delegates had one more major pollution concern. The Daily Observer will bring this and other concerns to the public in subsequent stories beginning tomorrow.
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