AbdulSamad Rabiu, Chairman of BUA Cement, revealed challenges in maintaining lower cement prices, blaming dealers and market factors for the persistent high costs.
At the 8th Annual General Meeting of BUA Cement in Abuja, AbdulSamad Rabiu expressed frustration over the inability to sustain a N3,500 per bag price policy for cement, initially intended to make the product more affordable for consumers.
Rabiu disclosed that despite selling over a million tons of cement to dealers at N3,500 per bag, the intended benefits did not reach the end-users. Dealers, instead, sold the cement at prices ranging from N7,000 to N8,000 per bag, pocketing significant profits and frustrating BUA’s efforts.
Rabiu stated: “So, a lot of the dealers took advantage of that policy. Rather than pass the low prices to the customers, they were selling at even double the price we sold to them.
“Some were selling at N7, 000 and 8 000 per bag. They made a lot of money with the very high margin. I think we had sold more than a million tons at N3,500 before we realised what the dealers were doing.
“And then, because of the issues that Nigeria faced at the time about devaluation of the Naira last year and the removal of fuel subsidy, we could not continue that policy.
“We wanted that price to stay at that level but dealers refused. So, we could not sustain that simply because we did not want to be in a situation where we are subsidizing dealers.
“I’m referring to the point when the foreign exchange rate moved from about N600 to maybe N1,800 to the US Dollar. So, it became even more challenging and more difficult for us to actually sustain that price policy.”
He said, however, that the company had continued to work towards making sure that prices did not escalate at levels of the percentage increase of the Naira devaluation.
His words, “If you see the exchange rate then, and the exchange rate today, you will see that cement is actually cheaper today than what it was last year, the reason being that if the dollar was up the costs go up by same margin and the price of cement should actually be, maybe, N10,000 Naira per bag.
The price of cement, if you take the N4,000 that it was in the beginning of last year, at 4,000 and today’s N6,000, it’s only 50% increase.
“So, we directly pushed to ensure that the price of cement is not getting higher than what it is today.
“But then again, you have areas where everything is dollar-dominated. Energy is the biggest cost. And our energy today is denominated in dollars. We buy gas to power our plants mainly. And gas is priced in dollars.”
