Delta bakers protest FG’s 15% levy, multiple taxations

Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria (AMBCN), numbering over 1, 000, yesterday protested against the federal government’s 15% levy collection on wheat importation from them and demanded immediate reduction of flour from millers. Speaking in Asaba during protest, the National Secretary of the association, Jude Okafor, said the levy that was introduced in 2012 was domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the purpose of development of cassava bread. The protesting bakers were armed with placards with various inscriptions like “Notice of Imminent Bakers Services Withdrawn is Hereby Served,” “FG Save Our Industry From Total Collapse,” “We Are The Second Largest Employers of Labour After FG,” “50kg Flour in Tanzania is N4, 500, but in Nigeria, it is N11,000.”
Okafor lamented that the federal government policy has agreed negatively on the bakers across the country. He said six years on, the initiative had clearly failed as all the components of the laudable programme had been abandoned, but the bakers were still made to pay the N1, 000 levy. “The fund was to be used to for the development of cassava bread which includes training, equipping of 5,000 bakers, and six in each of the 774 local councils in the country. The terminal date for the first period is 2016, as we speak only 1,584 bakers have been trained; only 151 bakers have been partially equipped in very unacceptable circumstances which even grossly violated the disadvantageous MoU entered between the Ministry of Agriculture and Bank of Industry.
” The national secretary criticised the high cost of sugar and flour in Nigeria in comparison to other African countries. He, however, urged the federal government to urgently come to their aid by reducing the prices of the commodities in consonance with the present exchange rate of naira to the dollar and high cost of diesel which were the factors that influenced the increase then. Okafor called on the federal government to use the accumulated money domiciled in CBN to train and empower 20,000 master bakers in the country.

 

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