Producers give reasons for skyrocketing cost of Cement

The Cement Producers’ Association of Nigeria, CEPAN, has expressed readiness to support the President Bola Tinubu administration in reducing the price of cement in 30 days.

The Chairman of CEPAN, Prince David Iweta, told The Tribune on Monday that the current hike in price of the product is due to production being overwhelmed by demand.

He said the association had alerted the Federal Government about the ramifications and probable outcomes of assigning the responsibility of producing and providing for the cement requirements of more than 200 million individuals to a select group with privileges.

“What we are seeing today is a case of demand clearly outweighing supply and we in the association knew it would come to this because there is no way the few players in the industry can meet the cement needs of Nigerians.

“If you remember, the association had earlier warned, even when the commodity was still as low as N3,000 that in the nearest future, it would sell for as high as N9,000 if certain steps were not taken.

“Why we were saying that then was to ginger the government to take action and avert this mess that we are all in today,” he said.