How Kampala Cement slid into receivership: a decade of debt catches up with a $100m manufacturing dream

Kampala Cement Company Limited has been placed under receivership after the Trade and Development Bank (TDB), formerly PTA Bank, enforced its security rights under a USD 49.3 million debenture, with KPMG Advisory Limited partners Edgar Isingoma and Nina Turyamuhabwa appointed joint receivers and managers over the company’s assets, business and undertaking, marking the collapse of one of the most ambitious local manufacturing ventures of the past decade.

According to a Notice of Appointment as Receiver or Manager filed with the Registrar of Companies under the Insolvency Act, Cap 108, the two were appointed on 29 June 2026, with the notice dated 2 July 2026 and presented by KPMG Advisory Limited, as first reported by CEO East Africa Magazine.

The debt behind the collapse

The trigger was a decade-old security instrument. The appointment was made under powers contained in a debenture dated 21 September 2015 — the year the company began production — and registered on 29 September 2015 under Certificate No. 19852. Papers filed with the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) show the debenture was created in favour of TDB, formerly the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank, giving the regional lender rights over Kampala Cement’s assets in connection with the USD 49.3 million facility.

The TDB loan, however, is only part of a much larger debt picture. The company’s latest annual return, filed with URSB on 7 July 2026 for the year ended 30 June 2026, discloses total registered indebtedness of USD 82,984,950 plus UGX 3.713 billion. The dollar obligations include the TDB-linked USD 49.3 million facility alongside registered obligations of USD 15 million, USD 8.053 million, USD 9.5 million and USD 1.13 million. The figures represent registered indebtedness and do not necessarily mean every facility remains fully outstanding — but they illustrate the scale of borrowing stacked against the business when enforcement came.

Big ambitions, heavy leverage

Kampala Cement entered the market as Uganda’s third cement manufacturer. The company began production in 2015 with a US$100 million plant at Namataba, and by 2016 had upgraded the facility with a new ball mill, a clinker storage unit and four 1,000-tonne steel silos. Despite being the newcomer, it secured contracts to supply the Karuma dam project and road construction programmes, according to International Cement Review, which also reported that the company was jointly owned by two local investors, Charles Mbire and Rajinder Singh Baryan, and that its entry intensified competition with Hima Cement and Tororo Cement, contributing to a fall in cement prices from around US$11 per bag in 2015 to US$9.12 the following year.

The Karuma connection later drew scrutiny. In 2016, Parliament’s Natural Resources Committee questioned Kampala Cement over the quality of cement it supplied for the 600MW Karuma hydropower dam, visiting the Namataba plant as part of investigations ordered by President Museveni following reports of cracks in the dam’s concrete, Uganda Radio Network reported at the time.

Cement manufacturing is punishingly capital-intensive, and the company’s cost structure may have worked against it from the start. In a widely shared analysis, concrete engineer Apollo Buregyeya noted that Kampala Cement’s products had quietly disappeared from the market for over three years, and argued that while the Namataba site sat close to central Uganda’s construction boom, it was far from the country’s key limestone, pozzolan and clinker sources in the eastern and western regions — a logistics disadvantage in an industry where hauling raw materials is a decisive cost.

Governance questions surface

The receivership has also exposed boardroom friction. The company’s latest annual return lists its directors as Baryan Manvir Singh Rajinder, Baryan Sukhminder Singh, Singh Rajinder Singh Pritam and Mbire Charles Michael. However, Charles Mbire, a 20% shareholder, told CEO East Africa Magazine in a 6 July 2026 interview that he resigned from the board over governance concerns, including what he described as unauthorised related-party and inter-company transactions, alleging that some company resources were used to support shareholder-linked businesses in Kenya. He shared a resignation letter dated 30 December 2022. Former managing director Bob Baryaw had not responded to the magazine’s request for comment by publication time.

What happens next

The receivers now control the company’s fate. The receivership process typically involves assessing the company’s financial position, protecting secured assets, managing operations where necessary and determining the best pathway for creditor recovery — with possible outcomes including restructuring, continuing operations, finding an investor or buyer, or realising assets to settle creditor obligations.

For TDB, the process is about recovering value on a facility nearly as old as the company itself. For Kampala Cement’s other creditors, suppliers and employees — and for a Ugandan cement market now dominated by rivals including Tororo Cement, Hima Cement and National Cement — the receivership will determine whether the Namataba plant returns to production under new ownership or is broken up.