Lafarge Nigeria positions to play big in FG’s N66bn housing budget  

Pursuant to playing a major role in the federal government’s drive for rapid infrastructural development in the 2016 budget, Ashakacem Plc, now an integral part of Lafarge Africa, says it has strengthened its commitment to profitable growth and value creation for its customers by being a preferred supplier of cement, particularly in northern Nigeria.

The federal government earlier in the week announced a budget of N66 billion for housing, an area in which Ashakacem plays a leading role in the supply of cement inputs across the country.

This represents an increase of about 3566.66 percent from the 2015 budget for housing, which was a paltry N1.8 billion.

During his maiden media address, Babatunde Fashola, the minister of power, works and housing, stated that “for us, consistency is key, annual spending is an imperative and we must change the budget for national housing from N1.8 bilion in 2015 to something in the hundreds of billions of naira that matches our ambition.

 

“And if we can spend N10 billion in each state and the FCT on housing alone every year subject to (a) the capacity to raise the money and (b) the capacity to utilize the funds having regards to our current construction methods and the time it takes to complete construction, which our ministry intends to change by research and industrialization of housing,” he said.

Fashola earlier in the week announced that the ministry of works would get N268 billion, power N99 billion and housing N66 billion.

Ashakacem has a cement plant in Ashaka, Gombe State with an installed capacity of 1 million metric tonnes (mmt) and there are plans underway to add another 3mmt capacity over the next three years.

Lafarge Africa, itself a leading sub-Saharan African building materials company, is a member of LafargeHolcim, the world leader in building materials.

Listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, with presence in Africa’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, Lafarge Africa is currently and actively playing a key role in the supply of raw materials needed for the urbanization and economic growth of Africa.

Combining its operations in Nigeria, which are Ewekoro and Sagamu plants in Ogun State; Ashakacem in Gombe State; Unicem in Cross River State; Atlas Cement in Rivers State; and Ready-Mix Nigeria, with its varied operations in South Africa, Lafarge Africa has a current installed capacity of 12mmt, which it says is expected to grow to 17.5mmt by 2017.

It also has strong market-leading position in aggregates ready mix concrete and fly ash.

“Cost of energy is a concern to our development plans and in the next 18 t0 24 months, that will become a thing of the past and we will also supply our host community with energy,” said Suleiman Yahyah, the company’s chairman, board of directors.

According to him, “it is going to be an independent power plant that will utilize our abundant coal resources, it will give Ashaka hundred percent of its energy needs and the surplus we will sell it to the grid and give some to the community.”

He explained that the first phase of the project will cost about $40 million and the second phase will cost around $60 million, making it a total of $100 million.”

To sustain this business drive, he said, there will be a military base at Ashaka in order to ensure security and make it an industrial base of pride in Gombe State.

Yahyah further assured that host community interests will also be protected as an issue that is not negotiable.

 

As a strategy to boost public and shareholders’ interest in investing more in the company, the chairman said Ashakacem is devising a means to deliver unclaimed dividend running into millions of naira to shareholders whose addresses might have changed since the company was privatized six years ago.

This is apart from its payment of N2 billion in taxes to the Gombe State government.

 “Now that we have seen a roll up of infrastructure projects and commitment to expansion and changing Nigeria, that gives Ashaka a new lease of life and gives Lafarge a new momentum to take advantage of this emerging opportunity,” Yahyah maintained.