The Rwandan government had put its share in the struggling cement maker Cimerwa for sale earlier this year. The majority shareholder, South Africa’s Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) Group, was expected to make a bid last month. The firm was considering to take up the 49 percent government stake. However, after the company failed to make the offer, Rwandan Government has started looking for new investors to buy its stake in the struggling cement maker.
Cimerwa is the country’s biggest and oldest cement maker. The firm currently operates below its production capacity, unable to meet local demand. Rwanda’s, local demand for cement has been growing steadily due to the ongoing mega infrastructure projects, several stadiums, Kigali Innovation City and low-cost housing projects. Last year, Cimerwa could produce only 364,864 tons of cement – less than 60% of the total demand. The country had to import 318,854 tons to meet the demand of 640,455 tons, as per the statistics from the National Bank of Rwanda. After the company’s persistent poor performance, the government started its efforts to sell its stake since March this year. Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB), holds 20.24 percent and Rwanda Investment Group (RIG) has 11.45 percent shares and SONARWA Group has 0.76 percent. Thus 49% of the total shares in the cement maker is available.
According to a report by EcoBank in 2016,of East Africa’s installed cement capacity of 15.6m tons, only 0.15m tons is produced in Rwanda which is a share of 0.9%
