Lagos bread bakers kick against multiple levies, police harassment
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Lagos bread bakers have voiced their frustration with high costs of ingredients and multiple taxes that make their business too expensive to run and in turn increase the price of bread and depress sales.
The price of an 800g loaf of bread has risen from N300 in 2019 to between N450 and N550 in 2021 sequel to increases in the price of flour and other ingredients, apart from hikes in the prices of other items such as electricity and cooking gas.
Then there is the burden of multiple taxation of business in Lagos.
Premium Bread Makers Association of Nigeria (PBAN) protested at the state Assembly on Friday and warned that one million jobs of their members may be lost
unless the “unbearable intimidation and harassment by state agencies’’ is stopped.
PBAN President Emmanuel Onuorah and General Secretary Emmanuel Onyoh led a delegation to hand a letter to Assembly Speaker Mudashiru Obasa and pleaded with him to help stop multiple levies from agencies and harassment by the police.
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Multiple challenges
Per reporting by Vanguard, the PBAN listed challenges threatening the survival of the bread industry in Lagos to include:
- Multiple monitoring of bakeries by ministries, agencies, and parastatals
- Harassment of delivery van drivers by Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs), and Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA) officials
- State agencies repeat motoring done by the officials of the National Agency for Food & Drug Administration (NAFDAC), Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), and Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, et cetera.
PBAN named the state agencies to include:
- Lagos State Ministry of Environment
- Lagos State Safety Commission
- Lagos State Ministry of Transport (State Carriage)
- Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA)
- Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA)
- Lagos State Fire Service
- Lagos State Inland Revenue Service (LIRS)
- Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA)
- Councils and Local Council Development Associations (LCDAs)
- Lagos State Signage and Advertising Agency (LASAA)
Levies include
- Daily ticket toll charged by councils and LCDAs
- Mid-year rates demanded by councils and LCDAs
- Police harassment and extortion of money from bread delivery drivers
Impact on business
PBAN said these hassles have reduced operational capacity to below 50 per cent, led to low staff retention, and a drop in employee tax to the government.
“The likely loss of job/business by over 500,000 bread distributors is imminent and this will further affect a lot of living conditions of their families,’’ it stressed.
It urged Obasa “to use your good office to save our businesses from collapse and prevent over one million people in Lagos State under our employment (inclusive of bread distributors) from becoming jobless and being pushed back into already saturated unemployment market.’’
PBAN appealed to the government to, among others,
- Use one consolidated agency to oversee bread business instead of multiple agencies
- Tell the police to stop the harassment, intimidation and seizure of the vehicles of bread distributors
- Make Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) World Bank grant and loans available to bread bakers as employers of labour.