The National Association of Scraps, Waste, Dealers and Employers of Nigeria, NASWADEN, has decried that its members have lost up to about N20 billion in three months.
The NASWADEN chairman in charge of North, Aminu Soja, disclosed this at a one-day summit, held in Kano on Wednesday.
Mr Soja said the members are still counting loses as a result price instability from their clients.
According to him, in the last two months, they were selling a ton of iron at N350,000, but the companies buying the commodities suddenly crashed the price to N270,000 per ton.
“Our major challenge is rise and fall of prices of our goods. For instance, in the last one to two months, a ton of iron was sold at N350,000 or N350 per Kilogram in Lagos.
“However, all of a sudden, the companies that purchase the commodities reduced the price to N270,000 per ton, that means they cut about N80,000 in a ton. That means any person loading 30 tons is losing about N2.4 million. Our members have lost a lot of money.
“We are still gathering data but our members have lost about N15 to N20 billion. Also some of our agents have lost a lot of money.
“This summit is to discuss and take a position on the way forward. We will meet the companies to discuss and resolve the price crisis. In this meeting, we will come up with approach to meet the companies to see how to make the price stable to enable our members return to the market,” he said.
The chairman however said the companies gave issues of flooding and rainy season as reasons for instability of the prices.
“The major reason the companies gave is that they made a lot of production, and there is low sale. There are no buyers and their trucks can not transport the goods to parts of this country and neighbouring countries because of flooding that destroyed the roads during the rainy season,” he added.
