Chairman and Founder of the BUA Group, Alhaji Abdulsamad Rabiu said he is ready to immediately reduce the prices of his company’s cement and sugar if other companies are prepared to do so.
Rabiu disclosed this to reporters on Monday, while calling for the liberalisation of Nigeria’s cement policy to boost production and subsequently crash the price.
The BUA boss who attributed the high cost of cement in Nigeria to low production capacity, urged the Nigerian Government to open up the cement industry for more competition, expressing optimism that it would crash the price of cement.
He faulted the belief that the country is self-sufficient in cement production, saying the price of a bag cement remains high because the few producers in the country are not able to meet the huge demand.
Explaining further, he said: “Look at the numbers: Nigeria is over 200m people today in terms of population. If you look at the production of cement, last year, we were under 30m metric tonnes.
“In fact, last year was higher than the year before, which means that in 2019, we were doing between 26 and 27 million metric tonnes. I am talking about production, and not installed capacity, which is another thing entirely.
“Nigeria’s 200 million people make it about 130kg per head. If you check, you will see that most countries in Africa are doing between 170kg to 200kg per head.
“So, Nigeria is actually producing less than other countries in Africa, apart from maybe Niger Republic. So, that means that we do not have enough capacity.”
He also pointed out that when any of the plants of the few players in the industry is faulty, the impact is immediately felt on the price of the community which is passed on to buyers of the product.
“The moment you have any problem in any of the plants in Nigeria and there is a shut-down or any challenge, immediately, you will see the impact in terms of price
going up
