Kenyan billionaire Narendra Raval to host president at $385 million cement plant groundbreaking

Kenyan steel and cement tycoon Narendra Raval has set Tuesday, Oct. 27, as the date for the official groundbreaking of his Devki Group's 50 billion-shilling ($385 million) clinker and cement plant in Kitui County, with President William Ruto expected to lead the ceremony.

Raval, the founder and chairman of Devki, announced the event on X on Saturday, inviting guests to the 9 a.m. ceremony for the National Cement Co. project at Ngaaie in Mwingi North, eastern Kenya. He called the plant "an important milestone in Kenya's industrial development."

Ruto began a four-day tour of the Ukambani region, which covers Machakos, Makueni and Kitui counties, on Saturday. On the final day, Oct. 27, he is expected to break ground for the clinker cement factory at Ngaaie, according to the itinerary released for the tour.

Construction began in September

Devki said in late September that construction had started at the site, which sits on large limestone deposits, and that it expects the plant to begin operating in the middle of 2027. It will be Kitui's first cement factory and the largest private investment in the county.

Ruto said at a media briefing in Mombasa on Oct. 1 the government had found an investor for a cement factory in Kitui and that he would visit the county to break ground. He said Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest person, had wanted to build a cement plant there years ago but was frustrated by the previous administration and invested in Tanzania instead.

"Dangote could have done the work seven years ago, but unfortunately he was frustrated so he chose to invest in Tanzania," Ruto said.

Devki has been working toward a Kitui plant since at least 2024. That year, Cemtech Ltd., a unit of its Simba Cement business, applied to Kenya's environmental regulator for approval of a clinker factory in the county with capacity of 5,500 tons a day. The plans ran into trouble that year when some residents protested over unpaid compensation for land. The company has not disclosed the capacity of the plant now being built.

Clinker, made by heating limestone in a kiln, is the main ingredient in cement. Raval has said that producing it closer to the market should help bring cement prices down. He has also said the plant will create hundreds of jobs once it is running, on top of the local workers and suppliers already employed during construction.

From hardware clerk to industrialist

Raval moved to Kenya from India in 1981, aged 19, and worked in a Nairobi hardware shop before starting his own business. Devki has since grown into one of East Africa's biggest industrial groups, making steel, roofing sheets and cement under brands including Simba Cement, National Cement and Maisha Mabati, with operations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Kitui project follows Devki's Cemtech clinker plant in West Pokot County in northwestern Kenya, which Ruto opened in 2024.