Bolivia: A review by the Technical Office for Strengthening Public Enterprises (OFEP) has deemed the ECEBOL cement plant in Potosí unable to operate indefinitely due to ‘severe planning and logistics deficiencies’ in its development under the previous government administration.

OFEP Director Pablo Camacho strongly questioned the administrative and budgetary decisions guiding the execution of this state project in an interview with local press, arguing that the infrastructure was placed in an unviable location for extractive activities and commercial transportation. “The cement plant in Potosí is never going to produce cement,” said Camacho. “It saddens me because I am from Potosí and this is a wound we Potosí residents carry because we were lied to. They built the plant in the least suitable place, 100km from the limestone deposit and forgot to build a road. They left us without gas. The plant will not have gas!” Camacho also stated that there is no adequate railway line to transport the projected cement volumes to the markets in southern Peru and northern Chile, export goals that justified the plant’s construction, but for which the necessary infrastructure was never built.

The report into the Potosí plant is part of a broader institutional diagnosis prepared by OFEP, which identified 20 state-owned companies in what it deemed ‘critical condition.’

Kenya: The Trade Ministry has abandoned plans to repeal a controversial 17.5% levy on imported clinker, ending a long-term dispute with the country’s president William Ruto. Trade Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui said the ministry has dropped earlier plans to repeal the levy, citing increased local clinker production.

The government introduced the 17.5% levy on clinker in July 2023, with clinker imports falling from 148,000t in 2023 to just 10,300t in 2024. The ministry had previously petitioned for the removal of the export and investment promotion levy on imported clinker, arguing that relying on heavily protected raw materials skewed industry competition and choked independent manufacturers who lacked clinker capacity. This position had contradicted president Ruto, who, in December 2025, indicated that Kenya had enough capacity to produce its own clinker.

India: The Karnataka High Court has overturned a US$50m penalty applied by the state government over limestone mining operations in Kalaburagi district on cement producer ACC, in a major relief to its parent company Adani Group. A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice KS Hemaleka also directed the Department of Mines and Geology to restore ACC's full access to the Integrated Lease Management System (ILMS) portal.

Kenya: National Cement, a subsidiary of Devki Group that produces Simba Cement, is seeking environmental approval to build a 60MW wind farm in Kajiado County, southern Kenya. The proposed wind farm will include 38 turbines, internal access roads, underground and overhead electrical cabling and a substation, according to an environmental impact assessment. The new proposal follows the company’s commissioning of a 15MW power plant alongside its clinker operation between Merrueshi and Mbirikani in 2018 to lower the company’s electricity costs. It will secure power closer to the company’s manufacturing operations while increasing the share of renewable energy in its electricity supply.