A president in an east African country partly won an election attacking Dangote Cement. As the insult and attack continued, Dangote shut down a $500 million cement factory: “Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has shut down his $500 million factory in Tanzania owing to high business costs and a fall out with the government … Dangote was invited to Tanzania to do business by former President Jakaya Kikwete in 2014 and was promised access to cheap natural gas to power the factory.”
When Dangote left, everyone expected the president to replace him with the promised “new investors”. Months came and went, no new investor was licensed. Despite opening the country to imports, prices of cement went up and builders complained. In the end, the president came to Nigeria, and asked Alhaji to return, while promising to support the plant with cheap energy. Dangote returned, prices of cement went down, and everyone rejoiced.
Good People, Nigeria must be careful with Aliko Dangote. He is one of the few businessmen in Africa that can exert the Conglomerate Tax in Africa, as I wrote in my book – The Dangote System: Techniques for Building Conglomerates. He has a clear path: the African free trade agreement, AfCFTA, can work for Dangote and his empire, and he can play that agreement against Nigeria (make in one country, sell anywhere with minimal tariff).
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Yes ohh, we’re reading that he is in Gabon on the president’s invitation (see photo), and they’re discussing interests to set up cement, fertilizer, etc factories there. If he closes the Nigerian plants, we will lose all the jobs and still use Dangote Cement, because of AfCFTA!
Why? Making Dangote Cement is cheaper in Tanzania, Ethiopia, etc because those countries subsidize his operations via cheap electricity. In Nigeria, Dangote produces his own electricity – about 40% of the total electricity consumed in Nigeria. This is the reason why his cement is slightly cheaper in Ethiopia, etc; these countries pay his electricity bills unlike in Nigeria where he runs his own NEPA as a private national grid!
Nigeria: be careful before we annoy this tiger. He can bite badly.
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“A president in an east African country partly won an election attacking Dangote Cement. As the insult and attack continued, Dangote shut down a $500 million cement factory: “Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has shut down his $500 million factory in Tanzania owing to high business costs and a fall out with the government … Dangote was invited to Tanzania to do business by former President Jakaya Kikwete in 2014 and was promised access to cheap natural gas to power the factory.”
When Dangote left, everyone expected the president to replace him with the promised “new investors”. Months came and went, no new investor was licensed. Despite opening the country to imports, prices of cement went up and builders complained. In the end, the president came to Nigeria, and asked Alhaji to return, while promising to support the plant with cheap energy. Dangote returned, prices of cement went down, and everyone rejoiced.” These paragraphs are full of misinformation, factual errors or total lies. A simple Google search is enough to factcheck these facts.
The East African country President being named here was the late John Magufuli who never set foot in Nigeria. Dangote never came to Tanzania to close his $500 million cement plant, which was never closed as portrayed here and cement prices did not go up because the factory was closed, etc, etc, etc. You can make an argument without any deliberate misinformation.
” Dangote never came to Tanzania to close his $500 million cement plant, which was never closed ” – this was well reported by global news media – “Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote has shut down his cement plant in Tanzania due to high energy costs and a technical glitch at the $500 million factory, according to a government source, who confirmed reports in Tanzanian media.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2016/12/02/africas-richest-man-faces-challenges-in-tanzania-shuts-down-cement-plant/ . I think Forbes is a reliable news source.
If you agree the factory was shut down, I will respond to the other notes. But if you do not, then Forbes, etc were wrong.