We Sold At 3500 Per Bag; Marketers Sold At 8000 – BUA Cement

The multibillionaire chairman of BUA Cement, AbdulSamad Rabiu, stated that the activities of cement dealers had thwarted his company’s plan to sell cement for N3,500 in 2023.

According to Rabiu, BUA sold over a million tons of cement to dealers for N3,500 a bag, with the goal of enabling Nigerians to purchase cement at a reasonable cost. However, marketers and wholesalers ended up charging between N7,000 and N8,000 for each bag of cement that was sold to customers.

He said that because BUA Cement had no control over prices in the open market, it was powerless to control the dealers, who, he said, were making large profits from the large margins.

He said; “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 a 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 the 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.”

A Gentle Reminder: Every obstacle is a stepping stone, every morning; a chance to go again, and those little steps take you closer to your dream.

Nnamdi Okoli