HARARE- In a bid to restore lost ground, Lafarge Zimbabwe has appointed a new Finance Chief barely 6 months after replacing Managing Director, Amal Tantawy who was barely a few years into the job.

 Fungai Kovhiwa who has been with a Dubai based packaging packing in a similar capacity has been recruited as the CFO with effect from 15 July 2019. Fungai has 18 years working experience including with Zimplats and Coca Cola.

In January, Zambian Siame Kaulule was appointed as Managing Director having been with at the group’s London office managing the Lead Retail Division.

Lafarge is one of Zimbabwe’s largest cement maker and the closest rival to PPC. The company has a single plant in Zimbabwe located in Harare and has capacity to produce 450 metric tonnes of cement per annum.

The company has however seen a downturn in financial performance over the last 2 financial years. Critically Lafarge has lost ground to competition notably to PPC which has increased its plant capacity and enhanced route to market.

 The later commissioned a new plant in Harare which has an annual capacity of 700000 tonnes per annum, thus upping its game and increasing pressure on Lafarge which has been the dominant supplier in Harare.

As part of its restructuring Lafarge Zim parent LafargeHolcim Group earlier in the year availed US$25 million to its Zimbabwe subisidiary to increase its capacity utilisation.

“This is in-line with an initial US$25 million, three-pronged expansion project at Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe that has been approved by the group” the company said, at the time the facility was announced.

Initiatives under the expansion project will include: additional cement capacity, additional capacity for agricultural lime and automation of the dry mortar plant.

In 2018 Lafarge Zimbabwe said it suffered significant downtime due to plant outages which consequently impacted volumes performance.

The company said despite firm demand over the year, the period was characterised by unplanned plant down time due to major breakdowns which subsequently slowed down supply.

According to Lafarge, worsening foreign currency shortages, as the year progressed, resulted in delays of up to six months to replenish critical spares for the plant and to import raw materials.

The move to restructure is therefore seen as a response to a myriad of challenges presently facing the company.

EQUITY AXIS NEWS