AFRICA: NIGERIA: Price of cement’ll fall next week

AS the price of 50kg of cement reaches an all-time high of N2,300, the Federal Government has invited cement manufacturers in the country to a meeting with a view to finding means of reducing the price.

Also, the Federal Government has assured Nigerians that the price of cement will fall next week.

At the meeting convened by the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Ms Joseph Tapgun, she described as unacceptable, the high price of cement, promising that government would ensure stability of cement price in the market.

The minister told the Cement Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (CMAN), led by its president, Mr Joseph Makoju, that the recent increase in price of cement in the market had caused great concern to the Federal Government, which had prompted the ministry to call a meeting with the cement stakeholders to the product the problem.

She said that Nigerians would experience price stability by next week due to the fact that the Kaduna Refinery had commenced supply of Liquefied Pure Fuel Oil (LPFO) to the manufacturers and with this development, the minister said that cement manufacturers had promised to flood the market with the product.

Ms Tapgun further assured the manufacturers that other challenges tabled at the meeting would be looked into in order to bring down the price of cement.

Earlier, the president of (CMAN), Mr Makoju, had pointed out that they were anxious to stabilise the price of cement in the market and would not want anything that would jeopardise the progress made in the implementation of Cement Backward Integration Policy.

He added that recent drop in the supply of cement was caused by the disruptions in the supply of LPFO to the manufacturers, being the first disruptions in two years and confirmed that supply of oil from the Kaduna Refinery had commenced and the market would soon be flooded with cement.

Mr Makoju also reiterated the effort of the manufacturers to reduce the influence of middlemen in the supply chain of cement through the opening of depots across the country and acquisition of trucks to facilitate the movement of cement to customers. He informed that with the level of investment in the cement sub-sector and opening of two additional cement plants (Lakatabu and Ibeshe) in the middle of this year, they would attain sufficiency in cement production.