Buisness Mogul and Chairman of BUA Foods Plc, Abdul Samad Rabiu, on Thursday, said prices of goods will continue to soar if regulatory bodies fail to check activities in the distribution chains.
Rabiu speaking at the company’s 7th annual general meeting in Abuja blamed the artificial scarcity and price hike on producers’ greed.
Rabiu said, “BUA products are the cheapest in the market. And because we have other companies producing similar products, it is very difficult to price them low. For instance, a few months ago, the price of flour went as high as N70,000 per bag.
“We retained ours at N50,000 for quite some time to try and force other companies to also come down. But when they saw it was going to happen, they deliberately stopped production, and the prices kept going up.
“So when we were at N50,000, the distributors added N20,000 and were selling at N70,000 per bag. At one point, customers were making almost N20 million per truck of 75 tonnes of flour. Yes, it happened. While we were there at N50,000, still puffing and praying for the prices to come down, some companies were not happy that we were keeping the prices low.
“That was why they suddenly stopped production to create scarcity. With that scarcity, the price kept going up. So that is part of the problem. When we saw that, we knew it did not make sense for us to continue selling at N50,000 when the market was at N70,000”.
The BUA Group said it was pertinent to support the federal government in the fight against food insecurity rather than exploit the weak food chain, the development revealed on the heels of its agreement with one of the world’s leading pasta equipment manufacturing companies, FAVA.
The business man urged stakeholders to show support to the federal government in addressing food insecurity rather than exploiting the situation.
