Cement Dealer Gives Reasons Why BUA Cement Will Still Be Costly

Today, I finally took delivery of my BUA cement consignment AT THE COST OF N5,350 per bag.

From what I know, the announcement from the BUA Group that it’s going to be selling for N3,500 per bag will have almost zero effect for the following reasons:

As I type, BUA trucks are almost completely withdrawn from major parts of the country, leaving licensed dealers to use their own trucks to ferry the products and incur huge cost on logistics. Check the attached pictures to see the very terrible condition of the roads these trucks ply. The driver that brought my products today told me he slept on the road for 3 days. From the boundary between Edo and Kogi where BUA factory is cited (about 218km) took the driver about 6 hours but from Nsukka to 9th mile which is about 57km took him a whopping 3 days AS A RESULT OF BAD ROAD. The new road from the Nigerian Brewery, 9th mile is a real death trap. The old road which many drivers are taking is almost always blocked due to too much traffic.

Many of the trucks that ply this road ends up falling along with their products, some get stucked while some escape with damaged tyres.

Add all these to the high cost of gas/diesel and you will see that even if BUA sells for N3,500 to the dealers, as long as those dealers will be using their own trucks on the terrible roads and with the attendant logistic costs which stand at over a million, cement will hardly sell below 5k to end-users, realistically speaking.