Why is the cement factory situated specifically in Sokoto State?
When you establish a cement factory you look for certain raw materials of which limestone is the most important. The closer the factory is to the raw materials the better. It is better to transport the finished materials instead of the raw materials. Roughly two tonnes of limestone is used to make one tonne of cement. So if you put the factory close to the raw material source you are halving the transport quantity compared to placing the plant far away from the raw materials but close to the market. At the moment we mine the limestone ourselves and buy gypsum from smaller local mining companies. How has the company’s performance improved since privatisation in 2000? Before the company was privatised it did not do very well financially. They had very little money for investment and the necessary maintenance. The factory has a capacity of 500 000 tonnes. When we came in eight years ago production was less than 20% of this. Last year we produced 65% of capacity. We still have some repair
