The inexplicable shortage of bags of cement, mainly from Canal and Holcim, has caused the suspension of several housing construction works and private sector projects in the Las Segovias region. Many fear that there will be a price hike.
Strangely, no authorities from the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have explained the reason for the cement shortage, which has been taking place for more than a month and a half. Lately, the problem has worsened, because the existence of this construction material has already been exhausted in many of the warehouses of most of the hardware stores in the departments of Estelí, Madriz and Nueva Segovia.
There are also those who fear that the prices of cement bags will rise, which, until a few days ago, sold for 450 cordobas per quintal of 100 pounds in the city of Estelí, while in the cities of Somoto and Ocotal, its price was higher due to the cost that is included for ground transportation and that exceeds 480 córdobas.
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Cemento Canal, from the company Cemex Canal, founded in Mexico, and which this year will celebrate 81 years of offering this product in our country, like Cemento Holcim, a company that began operating in 1997 in Nicaragua, have disappeared from the different warehouses from hardware stores. At the same time, other unknown brands that offer cement mixed with grit or sand are already starting to run out.
undersupplied
«We have been without cement supplies for more than a month. People are desperately looking for us to sell them, when we no longer have anything in our inventories,” said one of the owners of the hardware stores that exist in the city of Estelí.
In this same town you can already see some building works paralyzed due to the lack of this essential material in the construction branch.
«We have three days of having stopped the works of this building that would be used for the processing of tobacco leaves, because there is no cement anywhere. Only this week we needed about 300 bags, but not a single one we managed to get, and so far not even the hardware store is clear about what the shortage of this construction material is due to, “said Fermín Alvarado Rocha, foreman in the city of Estelí.
Meanwhile, in the cities of Somoto and Ocotal there is also concern that the lack of cement will generate an increase in this product. “Some construction foremen and bricklayer friends have told us that the worst that can come is that cement prices go up,” said Luis Alberto Morales, owner of a small hardware store in Ocotal.
In the face of silence, speculation abounds
The lack of cement in our country is already generating a lot of speculation among the owners of hardware stores, masons and construction foremen in the north of Las Segovias, since some affirm that they have been told that the government has temporarily suspended the operating permits for the companies that produce the material in the country.
Others speculate that the Ortega Murillo government would be thinking of taking over the companies to transfer them to capital linked to the regime and there are those who believe that some confiscation could be on the way. “The regime has taken over newspaper buildings, houses and vehicles of NGOs, university assets… They are capable of all,” said those affected.
By United Voices
