Representatives of the communities hosting AshakaCem Plc, yesterday, walked out of the venue of the Annual General Meeting of the company to protest the planned merger of the cement company and Lafarge Wapco.
The communities based their grudges on the failure of the company to commence work on the expansion project flagged off before the companies agreed to merge.
According to the leader of the communities, Dr Garba Mohammed, the reality of things on the ground was different from what the management of the company was publishing on the pages of newspapers.
He said the company has promised to expand its production from the current 1 million metric tonnes to about 4 million metric tonnes, lamenting that there was no expansion project going on in the plant, and the communities are worried that Lafarge would not carry them along in the development of the 35-year-old cement company.
The French cement maker, Lafarge, recently speaking through its country chief executive officer announced that it will combine its South Africa business with publicly traded Nigerian unit, Lafarge Wapco (WAPCO.LG), listing its Africa interests together on the Lagos bourse.
Guillaume Roux said the deal, worth $1.35 billion, will see the Lafarge group get $200 million in cash and 1.40 billion new shares in Lafarge Wapco to effect the merger.
Lafarge owned 60 percent in Lafarge Wapco, its listed subsidiary in Nigeria, 58.6 percent of Ashaka Cement Plc, and 100 percent equity holding in Atlas Cement Company limited.
The new company Lafarge Africa Plc will have a market capitalisation of over $3 billion listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Roux told a news conference.
Lafarge group will own 73 percent of the combined entity.
Chiroman Gombe, Barrister Zubair M. Umar, another Ashaka community leader, said the communities have reviewed the merger agreement together with experts and concluded that it was neither good for the community nor the company.
He said: “We don’t want the merger because of its negative consequences, we have been stabbed at the back, and we will not allow that to happen again. Therefore, we call for the complete reversal of the merger agreement, because we have reached a point of no return. We want to state here that the marriage between AshakaCem and the host community is over.”
Meanwhile, the AshakaCem Plc, a subsidiary of Lafarge, has declared 42 kobo dividend to each share for its 2013 operations.
Declaring the dividend, the chairman of the company Alhaji Umar Kwairanga said the board of directors resolved to recommend to the shareholders at the AGM a gross dividend of 42 kobo on every ordinary share in issue, same as it was approved by the shareholders in 2012.
He assured the shareholders and the communities that the management of the AshakaCem and Lafarge were committed to the expansion projects because of the competition facing the industry.
Daily Trust
