At the 8th Annual General Meeting of BUA Cement Plc on Thursday, Chairman Abdulsamad Rabiu disclosed how cement dealers thwarted the company’s efforts to reduce cement prices to ₦3,500 per bag last year. Rabiu lamented that profiteering by the dealers, along with economic challenges, undermined the initiative.
Rabiu explained that BUA Cement had aimed to lower cement prices to ₦3,500 per bag, but the plan was derailed by dealers who exploited the situation. “Rather than pass the low prices to customers, they were selling at even double the price we sold to them,” Rabiu stated. He noted that some dealers were charging as much as ₦7,000 to ₦8,000 per bag, profiting significantly from the higher margins.
He further revealed that BUA Cement had already sold over a million tons at ₦3,500 per bag before realizing the extent of the dealers’ actions. However, the economic pressures from the naira devaluation in 2023 and the removal of the fuel subsidy made it impossible to sustain the low pricing 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,” Rabiu added. The company’s efforts to make cement more affordable were ultimately undone by these combined factors, according to the chairman.
