Zimbabwe’s cement crisis has deepened in spite of the Government’s decision to allow companies and individuals with free funds to import cement duty-free, reported Business Times.
Earlier this month, the Government gave companies and individuals the green light to import 100 bags of cement (5 tonnes) and 100 bags of fertiliser (5 tonnes) duty-free until 31 December 2023.
However, there are few individuals and businesses that have free funds to import cement due to the severe shortage of foreign currency in the country.
A construction executive who spoke to Business Times on condition of anonymity said that many projects have stalled due to the shortage of cement. Said the executive:
The cement crisis has aggravated as the shortages have continued unabated in the formal sector with most projects stalling for months now.
In situations where the commodity is readily available, the prices are exorbitant ranging between US$15 and US$18 depending on the strength and are beyond the reach of many.
As we speak many projects have stalled and are certainly not going to meet set deadlines due to the devastating cement shortages.
We would have taken advantage of the little rains so far but with no money for imports and acute shortages, we can’t do anything at the moment.
Builtlink Engineering managing director Perseverance Manyangadze said the acute shortages of cement have hurt the company’s operations. Said Manyangadze:
We are faced with a situation whereby we are forced to double our costing due to the ongoing cement crisis.
As an example, we were billing a decent house at US$100 000 but with cement shortages and price escalations we are forced to double our costing as cement was sold at an average price of US$10.50 per 50 kilogrammes but now it’s now going for over US$18 per bag.
This means we have to increase our prices to meet the escalating costs. This cement crisis has caused some projects to stop as some of the project owners don’t have money outside their original budgets to continue operations and this has affected our viability.
We hope that the cement-producing companies will bulk up stock during the annual shutdown period from December 15, 2023 to January 15, 2024 to improve the situation.
In the long term, we anticipate that the cement producers get an increased power supply to ramp up production as with enough power supply, local cement is competitive.
Cement remains unavailable on the formal markets but the product is available in various containers around town and shades where the prices are very high.
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