Bakers have vowed to react to price increase in baking ingredients by increasing the prices of bread.

The Premium Breadmakers Association of Nigeria and the Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria gave this warning on Thursday at a press conference in Lagos.

The President, PBAN, Tosan Jemide, complained that businesses had been comatose due to the incessant increase in the prices of baking ingredients.

He noted that in the last six months, the prices of flour, sugar and other baking ingredients had skyrocketed without a corresponding increase in the prices of bread by member bakeries.

Jemide said, “We have been busy helping them remain profitable while our businesses suffer, because we are more in tune with the purchasing power of the consumer and are deeply concerned about food security.

“PBAN and AMBCN shall no longer take seat and watch such blatant increases in prices going forward. We shall react with equal price increases or stiff resistance.”

The Central Bank of Nigeria has given some commercial banks instructions to allow betting and gaming companies suspended earlier in the month the approval to honour withdrawals from their accounts to pay for winnings, salaries and other overhead expenses.  

Nairametrics saw a copy of the letter addressed to one of the banks.

In one of the memos, the CBN wrote:

On Quote: â€œYou will recall at the meeting held by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) with your bank and stakeholders of seven (7) betting and gaming companies on September 11 2020, you pleaded for clemency processing some transactions in violation of the extant foreign exchange regulations. Similarly, the betting and gaming companies intreated the Governor to allow them discharge operational expenses.” 

The CBN therefore approved that cheque payments and transfers be made out of the accounts provided it was towards winnings, salaries and other overhead expenses. 

On quote: â€œConsequently, the Management of CBN has magnanimously granted your bank the approval to honour instruments presented by the companies for payment of winnings, salaries and other overhead expenses.” 

Despite the partial lifting on the ban, the CBN still maintained a “Post No Debit restriction on the account and ordered that “no other transactions should be processed for any of the companies during the period of the waiver” effectively restricting the owners of the companies from accessing to pay capital obligations.  

A copy of the letter is attached below; 

Abiola has spent about 14 years in journalism. His career has covered some top local print media like TELL Magazine, Broad Street Journal, The Point Newspaper. The Bloomberg MEI alumni has interviewed some of the most influential figures of the IMF, G-20 Summit, Pre-G20 Central Bank Governors and Finance Ministers, Critical Communication World Conference. The multiple award winner is variously trained in business and markets journalism at Lagos Business School, and Pan-Atlantic University.