The Founder and chairman of BUA Group, Abdulsamad Rabiu has stated that the price of cement and sugar in the country is high because the local production of these products could not cater to demand.
Rabiu, who made the disclosure while explaining the reason for the high cost of cement in Nigeria to newsmen in Lagos, reiterated “that Nigeria has a population of over 200 million people, while cement production, for instance for last year was under 30 million tonnes.
“These numbers according to him do not support the assertion that Nigeria has attained a self-sufficient status in cement, and that the country can now start exporting cement.
“the price of cement and sugar is high in the country today because Nigeria cement companies don’t produce enough, as demand for these products outstrips supply in the Nigerian market”.
The BUA Group Chairman further explained that the sugar industry is battling with the same issue with the Backward Integration Programme (BIP) policy in place, as Nigeria has a situation where it has only three players and there is the BIP policy which states that unless you are seen to be doing a plantation you would not be allowed to do sugar refinery.
He specifically said: “In Nigeria, every day people come up to say we are self-sufficient in cement and that Nigeria can now start exporting cement; it not true. Look at the numbers: Nigeria is over 200 million people today in terms of its population. If you look at the production of cement, last year, we were under 30 million tonnes.
“In fact, last year was higher than the year before, which means that in 2019, we were doing between 26 million and 27 million. I am talking about production, and not installed capacity, which is another thing entirely. I am talking about actual cement production,” the statement said.
“To understand these figures, the metric that matters is – cement production to population ratio – which shows the amount of cement available to Nigerians per head. This figure, however, can be compared with other countries”.
Rabiu emphasised that Nigeria has a cement production to population ratio of about 130kg per head. While some countries in Africa, with lower production levels, are doing between 170kg to 200kg per head.
He stressed that Nigeria has the capacity to produce at least 300kg per head or about 60 million metric tonnes per annum – which is double the nation’s current production capacity.
With this metric, Rabiu gave emphasis to fact that Nigeria is actually producing less than other countries in Africa, apart from maybe the Niger Republic, hence the reason why the price of cement is high.
It would be recalled that the Management of BUA Cement Plc recently disclosed that the Company was set to sign a contract for the building of additional three production lines to be located in Adamawa, Sokoto and Edo States, with an installed capacity of 3 million metric tonnes per annum each this week.
In a related development, BUA Group Chairman said it has paid for 1 million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for Nigeria through the AFREXIM Vaccine programme in partnership with CACOVID.
These doses of the vaccine which should be delivered by next week will be the first delivery of Vaccines to Nigeria since the COVID-19 vaccines became available.
According to BUA, the vaccines will be distributed free to Nigerians at no cost.
Rabiu, while thanking the President of the Afrexim Bank, Dr. Benedict Oramah for making the purchase possible and the Nigerian Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, for coordinating the process through the CACOVID Private Sector partnership.
According to him, “BUA decided to secure these 1million vaccines by paying the full amount for the vaccines today because these vaccines became available only last week through AFREXIM. We expect the vaccines to be delivered within the next 14 days and hope priority will be given to our frontline workers who have committed their lives to managing the pandemic.
In addition to this, BUA is committing to purchase 5 million doses for Nigeria as soon as they become available through this same arrangement.”, Rabiu added. This development effectively pushes Africa’s most populous nation to the front of the queue in vaccine procurement.
