Kenya: West Pokot plant construction poised for 2016 start

Construction work on a long-awaited cement plant in West Pokot County, Kenya, is due to commence early next year, company officials have confirmed.

Cemtech Ltd, a subsidiary of India's Sanghi Group of companies, will begin construction work for the KES12bn following approval by engineers who had earlier raised queries over its site, among other issues.  The company acquired 650 hectares of land for the 1.2Mta plant about six years ago.

Diptish Nandha, general manager of Cemtech, affirmed that all pending issues were now sorted during a a courtesy call to the county governor Simon Kachapin. Nadha said experts had been assessing the quantity and quality of limestone, as well as resolving other technicalities that had delayed the setting up of the plant. "We have now solved the two major challenges on quality of limestone and ground geometric technicalities which delayed the start of construction," The Standard Digital News (Kenya) quoted him as saying.