By Lucky Patrick
The price of cement has hit shs40, 000 a bag just as the prices of all building materials continue rising. Prices of building materials, especially cement at early last month started rising due to unexplained reasons.
Our reporter sampled a number of hardware shops in fort portal, where he found out that cement prices have skyrocketed from shs28000 previously to shs40,000 which is an increase of about 40%.
The dealers, were asked about the reason behind the sudden rise in prices, but they could not clearly state the matter on the same.
In one incident,a one Paul Asiimwe who has a site in Kagote , said that he had paid over shs1.2 million to the hardware expecting to get over 40 bags of cement. On returning to add shs300,000, to secure the 40 bags he has earlier anticipated, it came to his surprise that he could get only 35 bags from the shs1.5 million he had .
What could the cause be?
Much as others tagged it to the rise in fuel prices, others claimed some of the cement factories had halted the manufacturing of cement due to break down of some of the machines.
A message last week that claimed to be from one of the cement dealers in the country said Tororo Cement factory had closed business to do some repairs, leading to shortage and subsequent rise in cement prices.
However, when contacted for a comment, one of the officials from Tororo Cement who preferred anonymity dismissed the same. Though, many attribute the rising cost to destabilization of the market because of the Russia-Ukraine war which in turn has led to the scarcity of raw materials.
Other items,
Meanwhile, other item’s prices have since raised, including reinforcement bars which were previously sold at 62,000 but now cost Shs80,000.
Other sources attribute the rising costs of building materials to the increasing price of fuel which is currently up to 5280. amidst all, no official explanation has been given by any of the cement companies in the country whose product prices have skyrocketed to unprecedented levels.
It also remains expected that prices will go down.
