The Chairman of BUA Cement, Abdulsamad Rabiu, is saying cement dealers frustrated his company’s plan to sell cement at N3, 500 per bag last year.

Speaking at the 8th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the company in Abuja, Rabiu also says that while his company sold over a million tons of cement to dealers at N3,500, per bag, with intent for benefits to pass to end-users, the dealers sold a bag of cement to customers at between N7,000 and N8,000.

He mentioned that BUA Cement was unable to regulate the dealers who, he claimed, were earning substantial profits due to the high margins, as the company lacked influence over pricing in the open market.

“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 N8,000 per bag. They made a lot of money with a very high margins. I think we had sold more than a million tons at N3,500 before we realized what the dealers were doing”, he said

“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”, he added.