BUA Cement has explained that the plan to sell a bag of cement for N3,500 has been crippled by market forces.
The company gave the explanation in response to the seven-day ultimatum given to its management by two civil society groups to sell its cement at N3,500 per bag or picket the company.
In response to the planned picketing of BUA cement office over the inability of the company to actualise its promise to crash the price of cement to sell at N3, 500, the company said it actually fulfilled that pledge.
Reacting to the enquiry the head of Creatives & Visual Identity management at BUA Group, Mr Timothy Sogbeinde, explained that the company actually sold cement at N3, 500 ex-factory for months before it stopped.
To further clarify his response, Sogbeinde sent a recorded message done by the executive director, Mr Kabir Rabiu.
In that message, Kabir reiterated that, “we actually sold our cement for three to four months at N3,500. We thought other players in the cement industry would join us in making the price of cement affordable.”
According to Kabir, BUA could not continue with the N3, 500 sales as both the middlemen and wholesale agents did not allow the end-users who were the main targets for the reduction to benefit from the price.
Similarly, Kabir emphasised that though 90 per cent of raw materials for cement production are locally sourced, yet the production cost which includes rising exchange rate coupled with electricity generation did not encourage BUA to sustain the N3,500 for long.
It would be recalled that a Civil Society Group, early this week, gave the management of BUA a seven-day ultimatum within which to meet its demand or face the consequences.
The group made up of members of Advocacy for Good Governance and Rumen Royal Foundation, cited the wrong price list of its cement given to the country as reason for the ultimatum.
The leadership of Advocacy for Good Governance, Comrade Dr Bartholomew Okoudo and executive director, Rumen Royal Foundation, Patience Okhuahensuyi, also called on the management of BUA for public apology for ‘misleading Nigerians’ when it announced that price of its cement will be sold for N3, 500 whereas its cement is being sold at N10,000 per bag.
The group gave BUA 7-day ultimatum to slash price of its cement or face the consequences
Reiterating their call to BUA management to live by its word, they said: “that the false declaration by the BUA Group led to very serious consequences for Nigerians, particularly operators within the building and construction industry, as most of them who went for loans in banks to build structures, were disappointed when they realised that BUA cement is now N10,000 instead of N3, 500.”
The duo said they wondered why the BUA Group reneged on its promise to the new government in less than six months despite the current hardship in the country.