Tycoon Mbire: I quit Kampala Cement board over governance red flags

KAMPALA, Uganda — Businessman Charles Mbire says he quit the board of Kampala Cement Co. Ltd. over governance red flags — chief among them unauthorized transactions he links to his co-directors’ business interests elsewhere — more than three years before the cement maker was placed under receivership.

Mbire, the MTN Uganda chairman who holds a 20% stake in the company, gave his account in a phone interview, describing a boardroom he abandoned at the end of 2022 and an investment he may now lose.

“I have had nothing to do with the management of the board for the past three years. I also stand a chance of losing the money I invested. But if the receiver sells the business, they can pay me my original capital,” he said.

The red flags

At the center of Mbire’s grievance, according to people familiar with the matter, were allegations that his co-directors moved money out of Kampala Cement to rescue a related company in Kenya. Mbire objected because the two firms are separate legal entities, the sources said.

The company’s other directors are Baryan Manvir Singh Rajinder, Baryan Sukhminder Singh and Singh Rajinder Singh Pritam. The directors are also linked to Multiple Industries Group, a manufacturer of building materials and related construction inputs.

Mbire is now formalizing an exit he says took effect years ago. In a letter dated July 2 and sent through K. Akantorana Advocates to Equatorial Secretaries and Registrars Ltd., he asked the company secretary to update the register of directors at the Uganda Registration Services Bureau.

“We therefore request you, in your capacity as company secretary, to arrange for the company’s register of directors to be corrected to reflect that Mr. Mbire ceased to be a director with effect from December 30, 2022, and for the requisite notification of this change to be lodged with the Registrar of Companies,” the letter read in part.

Mbire’s account comes as KPMG Advisory Ltd. takes control of the company he left behind. The firm was appointed joint receiver and manager of Kampala Cement effective June 29, assuming control of the company’s assets, business and undertakings. The appointment, confirmed in a notice filed with Uganda’s Registrar of Companies under the Insolvency Act, names KPMG partners Edgar Isingoma and Nina Turyamuhabwa as joint receivers.

The receivership follows the enforcement of a debenture by the Trade and Development Bank, the Nairobi-headquartered multilateral lender, over a facility worth about $49.3 million.

“The powers of the company’s directors over the assets and business of the company have since been suspended by law,” the notice reads in part, warning that anyone dealing with the company or its assets without the receivers’ approval does so at their own risk and could face legal action. Parties with claims against the company were asked to submit them in writing, with supporting documentation, to the receivers.

Kampala Cement built its reputation as one of Uganda’s major cement producers after commissioning a plant at Namataba, on the Kampala-Jinja highway in Mukono district, in 2015 at a reported cost of about $100 million. The plant opened with annual capacity of about 200,000 metric tons, later expanded to 1.2 million metric tons through production-line upgrades.

The debenture TDB has now enforced was signed in September 2015 — the same year the plant began production — meaning the debt that ultimately triggered the receivership was baked into the company from the start.

The company’s indebtedness now exceeds $80 million. Its latest annual return, filed with the Uganda Registration Services Bureau on July 7, discloses total registered indebtedness of nearly $83 million plus 3.7 billion Ugandan shillings, though the company notes that not every registered facility may remain fully outstanding.

Much of the borrowing was denominated in dollars, while the bulk of Kampala Cement’s revenue came from cement sold locally in shillings — a mismatch that made debt servicing heavier whenever the shilling weakened against the dollar.

When Kampala Cement entered the market in 2015 as Uganda’s third cement manufacturer, it helped push prices down sharply as it competed against established players Hima Cement and Tororo Cement. Competition later intensified when Kenya’s National Cement, maker of the Simba brand, set up Ugandan operations in a regional market already grappling with overcapacity and weak pricing.

Lower cement prices benefited Uganda’s construction industry, but they also squeezed the margins the company needed to service its growing dollar debt.

Concrete specialist Apollo Buregyeya argued in May 2025 that although Namataba sits close to Uganda’s central construction market, it is far from the country’s main limestone, pozzolan and clinker deposits, which are concentrated in the east around Tororo and the west around Hima. Because cement is heavy relative to its value, hauling raw materials long distances imposes costs that rivals located near the quarries do not bear. Buregyeya also noted that the company’s products had quietly disappeared from the market for more than three years.

“The company tried to do everything itself. They wanted to source, transport, manufacture, and even distribute cement all the way to the last-mile hardware shops. That is a full vertical integration model; expensive to maintain and risky without scale or strong systems,” he wrote on X.

Mbire, an industrialist with investments spanning telecommunications, finance, energy, real estate and mining, is widely regarded as one of Uganda’s wealthiest indigenous businesspeople. Whether his early exit shields his reputation, his 20% stake now sits in the hands of the receivers — and with it, his hope of recouping the capital he put in a decade ago.