On Tuesday, at the emergency meeting held with cement and building materials manufacturers in Abuja, the Federal Government warned the manufacturers of the cement that if they keep increasing the price of cement, the border might be open to allow importation of cement. The manufacturer had increase the price of a bag of cement from N5000 to N10,000 and above within two weeks.
The minister of works, Dave Umahi, had a meeting with the cement manufacturer on Monday, at the meeting the manufacturers insisted that they could only reduce the price of cement if the government addressed some of their concern, including the bad road across the country, increasing cost of gas and the declining value of naira.
But while addressing the manufacturers on Tuesday, Dangiwa who called on the manufacturers to be more patriotic as he noted that raw materials for production of cement such as limestone, clay, silica sand, and gypsum are being sourced in the country and not being imported and as such, the should not be dollar-rated.
Dangiwa who said the increase in the price of cement is unacceptable and unreasonable also dismissed argument of the manufacturers that gas and high cost of importation of equipment were responsible for the price hike.
The minister faulted Cement Manufactures of Nigeria for not regulating the price of their product in the country.
This was in response to the claim by the the Executive Secretary of the Association, Salako James that the association does not discuss or determine the price of individual companies but are only made aware of prices from the market like every Nigerian.
“The challenges you speak of, many countries are facing the same challenges and some even worse than that but as patriotic citizens, we have to rally around whenever there is a crisis to change the situation.
“The gas price you spoke of, we know that we produce gas in the country the only thing you can say is that maybe it is not enough.
“Even if you say about 50 percent of your production cost is spent on gas prices, we still produce gas in Nigeria it’s just that some of the manufacturers take advantage of the situation. As for the mining equipment that you mentioned, you buy equipment and it takes years and you are still using it.
“The time you bought it maybe it was at a lower price but because now the dollar is high you are using it as an excuse. Honestly, we have to sit down and look at this critically. The demand and supply should be good for you because the government stopped the importation of cement, they stopped the importation in order to empower you to produce more.
“Otherwise if the government opens the border for mass importation of cement, the price would crash but you would have no business to do and at the same time the employment generation would go down. So these are the kinds of things you have to look at, the efforts of government in ensuring things go well.”
