Twiga Cement shareholders get 15pc rise in dividends

IDDY MWEMA

Twiga Cement, listed on Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange, announced during its Annual General Meeting held in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the dividend had risen from 267/- in 2014 to 306/- in 2015. The surge was the results of profit going up to 56.2bn/- despite depreciation of the shilling that had an impact on fuel, spares and quarry services.

The Twiga Cement Managing Director, Mr Alfonso Rodriguez, said 2015 was a year for consolidation for the company with especial focus on management control and cost reduction. “Focus on management control and cost reduction has led to an increase of net profit by three per cent,” Mr Rodriguez said in his presentation during the 24th AGM.

The cement firm also reported an increase of 21.6 per cent in sales volume resulted in a boost of 18 per cent on the company’s net revenue.

The MD said Twiga plans to expand services to other countries inside and outside East Africa after remarkable successes in serving Rwanda, Burundi and Congo. This is a way forward to release pressure and dependency from the domestic market and increase its profit in the coming years through exports. In the field of environment, being the only cement industry using natural gas, TPCC promised with its mission of protecting the environment.

“The Tree Nursery Project continued to be active with more than 110,000 grown and planted in our efforts for quarry reforestation,” he noted. The MD also complemented the fifth phase government on tax collection saying the move will provide fair competition environment.

The dividends raise expectation pushed up by Twiga Cement share price on Wednesday after appreciating by 12.5 per cent to 2,700 a stock. Last year the company targeted to produce 1.5 million tonnes up from 1.4 million tonnes produced in 2014. The increased capacity follows last year’s commissioning of a new 700,000-tonne production line.

TPCC is well placed to meet this growing demand after investing in expansion of its capacity, together with rehabilitation of the old clinker line