Daniel Pettersson, the General Manager of Hima Cement has decried the poor infrastructure in the limestone bestowed Northern region like in Karamoja noting that this challenge has greatly stood in the way of establishing new mining sites in the country.
Hima GM Daniel Pettersson
Pettersson made the remarks on Tuesday during a breakfast media meeting at Serena Hotel in Kampala where the cement manufacturing giants were outlining their sustainable ambitions that are intended to blend within changes in global operation environment that are meant to help the company stay competitive in the construction industry.
He said, “Uganda is a tricky case, whereas some regions have lime minerals, these same places are faced with poor infrastructure which is deterring expansion of more sites. But as a company, we have long term prospects to widen our mining spheres in the country.”
The sustainability ambitions outlined according to Pettersson, were based on priorities in Uganda specifically being the deficit in housing units and environmental concerns. Therefore, it is a responsibility for Hima Cement to set the pace for the other sectors and entire construction value chain.
“Though the company is not going to be actively involved in real estates and construction development, we intend to use the experience from the Lafarge Group where Hima Cement belongs to use the global experiences attained, to offer solutions to our customers.”
Key on the sustainable priority plans is education, environment, safety and Health with environmental conservation being the target which Pettersson believes is aimed at optimizing the use of natural resources to conservation environment in areas where they are operational.
It should be noted that Hima that is based in Kasese supplies markets of South Sudan, Eastern DRC Rwanda on top of Rwanda. As a move to cut on production costs of using fuel, the company embarked on using biogas that now accounts for 53% biomass fuel which is obtained from coffee, rice husks and ground nut husks together with baggase, palm kernels in the their production as a way to cut costs in fuel usage.
Reporting by Prisca Wanyenya