Three Tycoons Are Spending US$600 Million to Stop East Africa Importing Cement’s Key Ingredient

KENYA · INDUSTRY

East Africa has imported clinker for two decades, and three industrialists are now spending to end that, with Narendra Raval and Edha Nahdi committing roughly Sh77 billion (about US$600 million) to local plants. A third, Sarbjit Singh Rai, has filed plans of his own. All dollar conversions in this story use a rate of roughly 129 Kenyan shillings to the dollar.

Why East African clinker became the prize

Cement looks like a local product, and mostly it is. The bags are heavy, the margins are thin and the economics collapse if you haul the finished goods too far.

Clinker breaks that rule. It is the kiln-fired nodule that gets ground into cement, it is where most of the energy and capital in the process sits, and it travels well enough to be shipped.

So East Africa ended up in a familiar position: grinding plants near the customers, and the valuable upstream step bought in from abroad. Every bag of local cement carried an imported input and an imported margin.

That is the gap the three industrialists are trying to close. Building kilns is expensive and slow, which is exactly why nobody did it while imports were cheap.

The three bets, and what each has actually committed

Narendra Raval, who arrived in Kenya from Gujarat in 1978 and began his working life as a temple assistant, built the Devki Group into a steel and cement conglomerate that now reports more than US$1 billion in annual revenue and about 14,000 staff.

Devki’s Cemtech plant at Sebit in West Pokot cost around Sh45 billion (about US$347 million) and was commissioned by President William Ruto in April 2024. It produces 6,000 tonnes of clinker a day, enough to support about 2 million tonnes of cement a year. Ruto’s presence at the opening tells you how the government regards import substitution.

Edha Nahdi’s route runs through Bamburi Cement, the long-established Kenyan producer. His Amsons Group of Tanzania bought a 96.54% stake in Bamburi for Sh23.6 billion (about US$183 million) in December 2024, and Bamburi has since signed a Sh32 billion (about US$250 million) engineering and construction contract with Sinoma CBMI, part of China National Building Material Group, for a greenfield clinker plant at Matuga in Kwale County.

The Matuga plant is designed for 1.6 million tonnes of clinker a year. Construction began in the first quarter of 2026 and the first clinker is expected in early 2028, according to Kenyan press reports of the signing, which Ruto witnessed. Amsons has committed about US$400 million to Bamburi over three years in total.

Sarbjit Singh Rai, who runs the Sarrai Group from Uganda, is the newest entrant. He has filed plans with Kenya’s National Environment Management Authority for a cement and cement-products plant at Lusoi village in Nyeri County, to be developed by Ndovu Rock Limited. The investment value has not been disclosed.

Taken together, the three have committed at least Sh133 billion (about US$1.03 billion) to acquisitions and new capacity across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda in three years.

The multinationals are leaving as the locals arrive

This is not happening in a vacuum. Global cement groups have spent several years retreating from sub-Saharan markets where returns did not justify the capital, and their positions have been bought by regional champions. Holcim’s exit from Bamburi and from Tanzania’s Mbeya Cement handed both assets to Amsons.

Raval’s National Cement completed the acquisition of a 99.94% stake in Rwanda’s Cimerwa in January 2024, in a deal worth about US$84.3 million, buying out South Africa’s PPC and minority shareholders. That is the pattern in one line: a multinational sells, an East African buyer scales.

Tariff policy has pushed in the same direction. Kenya introduced a 17.5% levy on imported clinker in July 2023, which improved the arithmetic for domestic kilns. Policy did not create the ambition, but it changed the payback period.

The result is an industry whose ownership has shifted decisively toward local capital within a decade. Whether it is a better industry is a separate question.

Where the bet could go wrong

Kenyan cement consumption has been broadly flat even as capacity has climbed. Building kilns into stagnant demand is the classic way to manufacture a price war rather than a profit.

Cement is also energy-hungry, and East African power costs are neither low nor predictable. A kiln that is competitive at one tariff can be uncompetitive at another.

Latin American readers have seen this film. Brazil and Mexico both went through cement capacity build-outs that ended in consolidation, and the survivors were the ones with the cheapest energy and the shortest haul to customers.

The upside, if it works, is real and durable. A region that makes its own clinker keeps the margin, the jobs and the foreign exchange, and stops importing the most valuable part of its own buildings.

What is still unverified

Rai’s Nyeri project is at the filings stage, and no cost or capacity figures have been published. Reported shilling figures for the Bamburi contract have varied between outlets; this story uses the Sh32 billion (about US$250 million) figure given by Bamburi Cement at the December 2025 signing.

This report is based on Billionaires.Africa’s coverage of August 29, 2026, corroborated by Kenya’s Capital FM, Business Daily and The EastAfrican.

Frequently asked questions

This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error