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Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote’s cement company, Dangote Cement Plc, has continued to lead the way as one of the biggest taxpayers in Nigeria, paying more than $80 million in income taxes in the first quarter of 2023.
According to the company’s recently published financial results, the $81.1-million income tax expense incurred in the first three months of its 2023 fiscal year was 26.16-percent lower than the $90.15 million paid in the corresponding period in 2022, when its pre-tax earnings surged above $330 million.
Despite the challenging business environment, which saw a cash crunch in Nigeria and limited financial transactions due to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s redesign of the naira, Dangote Cement continues to weather the storm.
In the first quarter of 2023, the company’s revenue declined by 1.56 percent to $883.3 million from $897.3 million in the same period last year.
The decline in revenue, coupled with soaring energy costs and operating expenses, pushed the group’s pre-tax earnings down from $397.5 million in the first quarter of 2022 to $320.4 million in Q1 2023.
Despite the challenges, Dangote’s cement company negotiated a 26-percent reduction in its income tax expense, which helped boost its profit after tax to just over $80 million.
The company’s assets increased from $5.66 billion to $5.86 billion.
Similarly, its retained earnings increased from $2.15 billion to $2.32 billion, cementing the company’s position as the continent’s largest cement manufacturer and the most profitable.
Dangote Cement’s annual cement production and bagging capacity of 51.55 million metric tonnes make it the largest cement manufacturer in Africa.
However, the cement behemoth only sold 6.27 million metric tonnes of cement in the first quarter of 2023, compared to 7.09 million metric tonnes sold in the same quarter last year.
