Cement Cost in UGANDA

At the quarry
Katosi, the lakeside town on the northern shores of Lake Victoria in Mukono District, is more than the fishing and witchcraft hub you could have heard about. In fact, when you step on the Mukono-Katosi Road, you will see more tipper-trucks raising clouds of dust along the road, than fish trucks. These tipper-trucks will be on their way, back and forth Katosi, where sand mine after sand mine clutter its coast. 

Sand traders in Kampala confirm that Katosi is one of the leading sources of sand used around the Greater Kampala, among other sources like Lukaya near Masaka, Buleemezi in Luweero, and Bugerere in Kayunga District. So severe has been the case of sand mining in Katosi that many large quarries (the size of about three football pitches) have run out of sand, leaving the place arid and depleted with large ugly gullies. 

Most of the sand quarries seem to belong to no one, at least according to the miners. It is only in the case of quarries found in privately owned land where miners pay a premium of say Shs5,000 per truck to the landlord, miners say. 

A truck driver, normally of the large 10-wheel Isuzu Giga truck kind, locally called magulu kumi, drives into the quarry and purchases sand from miners. These miners are the ones who dig into the quarry for the sand, sieve it, and pile it up into knolls. They say they will fill up a magulu kumi with floor sand to above its brim level and create a sort of hill on top, for Shs80,000. The truck owner will then also part with Shs20,000 for the potters who fill the truck with sand. 

The magulu kumi thus drives out of the quarry having paid Shs110,000 for a trip of floor sand. 

The small trucks like the Isuzu Forward truck will fill for Shs41,000, with Shs6,000 paying potters, and the rest to the miners. The Isuzu Elf will cost Shs15,000 to fill up, with Shs5,000 going to potters. 

Along the way
When the trucks leave the quarries, they then encounter additional costs on the road in the form of local council taxes that they have to pay for ferrying the sand. This will cost about Shs25,000 for the magulu kumi, Shs15,000 for the Isuzu Forward truck and Shs10,000 for the Isuzu Elf truck. 

Truck drivers say this form of taxes is the easy part, because it is largely fixed. The hard part is when traffic police officers take over the Katosi-Mukono road and use any excuse to make money off the drivers. One truck driver says, “They (cops) can leave legitimate queries like the local council receipt and start looking at your tyres, then they threaten to fine you.” 

Drivers say this part is more complicated because they cannot determine how much the cops will ask for in bribes. “One day you pay Shs20,000, another day, you can even pay Shs100,000 when they accuse you of speeding, having bad tyres and expired insurance,” the drivers say. They add that there is hardly a return trip they make to the quarries in Katosi without paying a bribe to a police officer. On top of these, drivers say, some residents in the villages block the roads and require the truck drivers to pay off a small amount, of say Shs5,000 as maintenance fee for the road.

Sand markets
There are various yards in towns around Kampala, which act as sand markets. Trucks drive in from whichever quarry and dump the sand here. These yards are filled with large collections of sand, just waiting for a buyer. 

There are such markets in Kyetume (along the Mukono-Katosi Road) and in Kireka towns; and here, the magulu kumi trucks arrive and sell the sand at Shs320,000 and Shs350,000 respectively, according to traders. 

It is here that the drivers who ferry the sand from quarries hand over to the traders. Although truck drivers insist that paying bribes leaves them at near losses, by the time they hand over the sand, they have made themselves a healthy profit. Even when you take modest estimates for bribes to police officers, of even Shs50,000, the drivers, who paid Shs110,000 at the quarry, Shs25,000 to the local council authorities, Shs55,000 for fuel, and even Shs5,000 for road maintenance, would leave with a clean Shs105,000. Even if the bribes came up to Shs100,000, they would still make Shs55,000 off the trip.