WAPCO’s six months figures

The idea behind supporting local content, apart from the local economy benefitting, is to get competitive prices locally. However, in the case of cement, while the local companies continue to flourish, prices refuse to budge. Dangote Cement Plc.’s pre-tax profit surged by 52 percent to N107.7 billion from last year’s N70.8 billion. This growth was largely attributable to increased demand of cement as the revenue during this period increased by 28 percent to N198.5 billion. Chief Executive of Dangote Cement, Edwin Devakurmawas quoted as stating that the improved sales was more than double the growth rate of the overall Nigerian Cement market estimated at 14.2 percent and gave his company kudos for direct delivery to customers which has resulted in the ‘robust’ profit.

Similarly the second biggest player in the cement market, Lafarge Cement WAPCO, in its half year results, showed impressive profits after tax: jumping fromN8.805billion to N14.585billion. Although the comments on the accounts suggested that this increase was as a result of “various productivity improvements” and “reduction of variable rate loans resulting in lower finance cost”, there was still a leap in revenue from N46.341billion to N49.481billion. This means that in the first six months of the year, sales increased by N3billion. Another support given to the company, Pioneer Status which was granted on its Ewekoro II Plant meant that the company enjoyed a ‘non-recurring tax credit’ which resulted in the tax expense of the company moving from a deficit of N3.409billion to a surplus of N779million.