The Chairman of BUA Cement Plc, Abdulsamad Rabiu has related how cement dealers frustrated his company’s plan to sell cement at ₦3,500 per bag last year.
Rabiu who spoke at the 8th Annual General Meeting of the company on Thursday, said cement prices would have dropped to as low as ₦3,500 per bag were it not for large appetites of profiteering dealers.
He added that the Naira devaluation last year and the fuel subsidy removal also played roles in making the policy unsustainable.
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 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 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 subsidising dealers.”
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