Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe Ltd posted a loss of US$609,589 for the year ended 31 December 2017 according to CemNet Newsroom on 4th April 2018. Revenue during the period under review fell 4.14 per cent to US$58.4m from US$61m. Apparently  heavy rainfall adversely affected cement stocking patterns and partially contributed to low sales in the early part of 2017. Insufficient foreign currency to import critical equipment and other production inputs led to the increased finance costs.

Dr Clark was in Zimbabwe in early 2017 visiting each of the PPC Zimbabwe plants in Colleen Bawn, Bulawayo and Harare as part of the technical due diligence for the proposed merger of AfriSam and PPC. It didn’t rain while Dr Clark was in Zimbabwe.