The Minister for Environment Science and Technology, Miss Sherry Ayitey has disclosed that, Ghana will begin a large-scale commercial production of Pozzolana cement at Gomoa near Apam in June 2010, at a rate of 4000 bags per day.
This she said will provide the youth with employment, while reducing foreign exchange expended on clinker imports to produce Portland cement, as well as reduce the cost of housing, making housing affordable.
Madam Sherry Ayitey revealed this at the Meet-The-Press series, a session for her Ministry which concentrated on the programmes and projects of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR.
According to her, Ghana’s Pozzolana Cement has been tested and proven internationally to be durable and therefore has the potential to replace Portland cement by 40 per cent. This will save the country over US$30m/year on clinker imports.
“Many building construction technologies like the Fast-Track Cost-Saving construction technique have been developed. The technology aims at optimising available local resources in construction with the potential of reducing conventional house building cost between 15 - 20 per cent.
The technology has already been used to put up over 500 housing units for the Social Security and National Insurance Trust, SSNIT.” she elaborated.