Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc and Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc have berated BUA Foods Plc for accusing them of suspending the sale of sugar.

BUA Foods had in an advertorial published on Monday said Flour Mills suspended sugar sales because the 2022 raw sugar allocation had been declined by the government. It also accused Dangote Sugar of halting sales of the product in a bid to create scarcity and force prices to go up.

But in a press release published on the Nigerian Exchange Limited on Thursday, Dangote Sugar described the claim by BUA as false. It said, “In compliance with the requirements of the Rulebook of the Nigerian Exchange Limited, DSR wishes to strongly refute the allegations and assertions in their entirety as these false allegations may mislead the market and may give an undue competitive edge to BUA.”

“We believe this behaviour exhibited by BUA is worrisome and appears to conflict with the anti-competition rules. Last year, just before the commencement of Ramadan (the Islamic holy month of fasting), BUA made similar false allegations against the company that it was engaged in ‘price-fixing’ and not honestly pursuing the Backward Integration Project.