Why prices of bread should not increase – Breadmiller President, Onuorah
Bread should not be Expensive
A stakeholder within the breadmaking value chain has cautioned against an upward price review.
The President of the Premium Bread Miller Association of Nigeria, Emmanuel Onuorah, disclosed this on Arise Television while discussing a proposed bread price hike in Nigeria.
According to him, the bread making value chain stakeholders, such as the wheat importers, should avoid increasing bread prices.
He stated that before the unification of the foreign exchange window by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government, the wheat importers had always claimed they buy forex at a parallel market rate.
Onuorah lamented that further increases in bread prices would mean less profit for bread makers.
He said, “The wheat-flour value chain will always tell you that foreign exchange prices of bread are increasing because we source their forex from the parallel market; that is, their catchphrase then.
“Now that President Tinubu’s government has liberalized the forex window, they are saying they were getting it at the then-official price. What does this tell you?
“They want the bread business to be unprofitable for bread makers. Recently we started hearing that they want to increase bread to as much as N5,000 or maybe around N2500, but because of the tension, they have to put it on hold. We are calling on them not to do that; they have been buying forex at a parallel market rate, so what has changed?”
He urged that everybody in the value chain must make sacrifices.
“Everybody must make sacrifices now; the same goes for sugar refiners”, he stated.
The Central Bank of Nigeria had introduced new operational measures on the forex market, resulting in the floating of Naira at the Investors’ and Exporters’ window.
