Cement high prices: BUA Group fingers middlemen, competitors

A cement manufacturing company, the BUA Group has blamed middlemen and other manufacturers for the high cost of cement in the country.

The company regretted that its efforts to make the product available and affordable to Nigerians have been hampered by the unscrupulous middle men and others in the chain.

According to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Group, Abdul Rabiu, cement prices will only stabilize when the company increases its production volume in 2023.

The BUA Group chair, who disclosed this on Sunday to State House correspondents in Abuja after the group’s delegation met with President Muhammadu Buhari, explained that despite BUA Group’s increased cement production and price reduction by 10 percent per bag, the impact had not been felt.

Rabiu accused the middlemen and other manufacturers of frustrating their efforts.

He, however, disclosed that the Group is holding talks with other cement producers to reduce the price of cement in Nigeria.

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He said: “I know everybody is talking about the high price of cement in Nigeria and that is, of course, because we do not have enough capacity. 

“When we started production, the fourth line in Sokoto a few weeks ago, when Mr President was there to commission the plant, we decided to actually reduce the price of cement by N350 per bag. And that is about 10 percent of the price.

“So today, our price is N3,000 or N3,050, but that has actually not been reflected in the market, simply because the other two producers have actually not reduced the price of cement, so we are having a challenge. We are actually in a quagmire now. 

“We are discussing this because what is happening is that we have reduced, but the dealers and the distributors are the ones that are actually making the money. So, it’s a bit of an issue for us.

“We thought that by reducing the price by N350, the other companies would probably follow suit. That has not happened. 

“We have seen a situation where the price of cement is still high, you know, so distributors and the dealers are making almost N800 to N1000 per bag.”

Rabiu declared: “That is unacceptable. Because the idea initially when we did that was that we want the situation where the end-users will benefit from the price reduction.

” So now we are contemplating whether probably we have to increase our price to the level of the other producers, which I think is N3,350 or N3,400.”