Stakeholders in the cement industry have expressed concern over the increasing prices of the product across the country in the last four months. Some have attributed the situation to problems of inadequate supply, high transportation cost and policy somersault. A survey conducted by the News Agency Nigeria (NAN) across the country showed that prices of the different brands of cement have gone up by an average of 44 per cent in the past four months.

A bag of cement, which was sold for an average of N1, 500 in December 2010 is now on the average of N2, 500. The rising prices of cement have now become a sensitive issue like those of petroleum products and food items. The major brands of cement in the country are Ashaka, Ibeto, Burham, Bua, Elephant and Dangote.

They are manufactured in different locations across the country although dealers said the Dangote brand is the most popular as it is more readily available in the market. Alhaji Abdulkadir Ibrahim, a civil servant in Kano, described the rising prices of cement as “painful and incredible”. “I am just building a corner shop near my house and it is taking me years to actualise it because of high prices of cement. I used to buy a bag of Dangote cement for N1, 800 just four months ago, but now it costs N2, 350.

Government must do something about this,” Ibrahim said. Alhaji Aliyu Mahmood, a businessman in Kano, also bemoaned the high and unstable prices of cement across the country. “If I buy a bag of Ashaka cement for N2, 150 today, tomorrow they will increase the price to N2, 250 because of the scarcity. This is traumatic,” Mahmood, who is building a duplex in Kano, said. The survey showed that the rising prices are often market induced because of supply deficit. Cement dealers in Akure, Ondo State, agreed on the scarcity of all the brands which, they said, had in turn affected the prices.

Mr Funso Omotola, a dealer on Idanre Road, Akure, told NAN that price of Elephant brand of cement rose to as high as N2, 750 in late March due to short supply and high demand for the product. Stakeholders alleged that some cement manufacturers were taking advantage of the supply gap to increase prices arbitrarily.

A manufacturer was said to have increased the factory price from N1, 300 to N1, 500 per bag a forth night ago. An official of Ashaka Cement depot in Kaduna, who pleaded anonymity, told NAN that a bag was sold for N1, 500 in November last year, but since then, the depot had not received any supply. Some dealers have also blamed high transportation cost for the rising prices of cement. Malam Abdullrasaq Usman, a cement distributor at Kaduna North Railway Station, told NAN that it used to cost them N80, 000 to transport 600 bags of cement from Obajana in Kogi State to Kaduna. Usman said it now cost N300, 000 to transport same quantity to Kaduna due to the scarcity of diesel.

“The cost of a trailer load containing 600 bags of cement is N912,000 while transportation cost is N300,000, which makes the unit price N2,020 from the manufactures,” he said. Usman said the average retail price of a bag of cement was N2, 350, in Kaduna as the cost of off-loading from the trailer had to be built into the price.

He said when the cost of transportation was N80, 000 from the factory, a bag was N2, 100 but now that the cost of transportation is N300, 000 while a bag is N2, 350. An officer of a cement depot in Kaduna said that apart from the cost of transportation, there were technical problems affecting some of the cement plants that had affected their cost of production.

She said although she was not in a position to provide detailed information on the issue, she was hopeful that the situation would be resolved as cement price would soon fall. Alhaji Musa Aliyu, a cement dealer in Kano, told NAN that it now cost him N320, 000 to transport a trailer-load of cement from Obajana in Kogi State to Kano against the previous N120, 000. Aliyu, who sells cement at the Railway station in Kano, said that the transporters had increased the fares because of the high cost of diesel.