Cement Sales

The sales of cement in Madeira have fallen drastically from a peak of 774.595 tons in 2004 to 251.745 tons in 2010 – more or less the same level as 1991.

2004 was an election year. The Portuguese Government had approved a law of zero tolerance with regard to increasing public debt, but Jardim’s Government in Madeira sidestepped the law by creating a number of state companies which then borrowed approximately €500 million to finance public works, to be inaugurated in the run up to the elections.

Madeira’s cement is supplied by two companies: Cimentos Madeira is part-owned by the Regional Government, Cimentos Europa is owned by a consortium of four of the largest building companies and Jaime Ramos, Jardim’s right-hand man and parliamentary leader.

In 2004, AFA, one of the shareholders of Cimentos Europa was one of the construction companies with the biggest turnovers in the whole of Portugal, based almost exclusively on the public works it carried out in Madeira. AFA SGPS was part-owned by a London-based company called ‘Vasia Investments’ (Vasia means ‘empty’). This company was in turn owned by ‘Corner Consultants, Ltd’, based in the Virgin Islands. The shareholders of the latter company are unknown…