With effect from July 24, Nigerians will now pay more for bread as the As­sociation of Master Bakers & Caterers of Nigeria (AMBCN) has announced an increase of 15 percent on all its products.

This is as respondents on Wednes­day decried the planned increase on price of bread, saying they are already going through enormous hardship following the removal of fuel subsidy. They asked President Bola Tinubu to assuage their condition with people-centric policies.

The association in a statement on Wednesday jointly signed by Alhaji Mansur Umar and Hon. Jude Okafor, the National Pres­ident and National Secretary, respectively, stated that the deci­sion was agreed upon after the National Executive Council ex­traordinary virtual meeting.

The association said that the decision was taken due to the multifarious increases on the prices of baking materials, flour, sugar, yeast, vegetable oil, twist tie, petrol, diesel (occasioned by subsidy removal), multiple tax­ations from federal and states agencies including Standards Or­ganisation of Nigeria (SON), Na­tional Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), EMBLEMS, local government authorities fees and levies, consumer protection council, among others.

According to the statement, “We critically assessed the state of our business operations, con­sequently resolve that the recent general increases on our factors of production including but not limited to additional N1.2 million on one truck of flour (N2,000 per bag), N3.6 million on one truck of sugar (N6,000 per bag); yeast, additional N2,000 per carton; fuel from N205 to N550; diesel, N650 to N700 (depending on the part of the country), multiple taxations from Federal Govern­ment regulatory agencies, state government tax agencies, state government emblem collectors, state and local government health agencies and other taxing agencies too numerous to men­tion here, continuous collection of now heavily increased wheat levy (which is now diverted to other uses other than the objec­tive for establishing it).

“Charge of all manner of lev­ies on flour millers that is finally transferred to bakers; it has now thrown a great number of our members into unemployment market and still counting.”

The statement further states that “effective July 24, 2023, as an interim measure, all members of AMBCN are hereby advised to adjust their prices by 15% (in consonance with the now heavily increased cost of factors of our production) across the board as we can only produce standard baked products in accordance with NAFDAC regulation as we cannot sacrifice the health of our fellow country men and women on the altar of breaking even point by resorting to unhealthy practices pending further reso­lutions.”

The association thereby called on federal and state governments to intervene urgently and save the industry from total collapse.

The association directed that all zonal chairmen, state chair­men and local chapters’ chair­men should commence full scale mobilisation towards implemen­tation of the interim resolutions and await further directives from the national secretariat.

“We sincerely appreciate the understanding and cooperation of our numerous customers na­tionwide as they grapple with the extra burden placed on them with the imminent increase and promise to revert back should there be significant governments interventions”.