The Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria (AMBCN), FCT Chapter, has called on the Kogi branch of the association to allow the sale of bread coming from neighbouring states.
Mr Ishaq Abdulraheem, the FCT Chairman of AMBCN, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen on Thursday in Abuja.
He said that the association had received complaints from its members of being barred from entering Kogi on the orders of the chairman of the Kogi branch.
He said that on Aug. 18, some members of the association in FCT called him that they were stopped from entering Kogi to supply bread.
Abdulraheem added that some were forced to go back while others were taken to police station for selling their bread in the state.
He said that effort to reach the Kogi state chairman on account of the development was abortive as he refused to pick his calls.
“I tried to tell him but he is unwilling to listen, I had to call the caretaker chairman of the National body for him to intervene and he did,” he said.
Abdulraheem said that he was later told that the move was in a bid to increase the price of their bread, but added that increasing the price of bread was competitive.
However, Mr Bamidele Gabriel, Chairman of Kogi branch of Master Bakers Association of Nigeria, said that the decision was to checkmate the quality of flour products coming into the state.
Gabriel said that many bread from outside the state have been found to still use bromade and other unauthorised products.
The Chairman told NAN that the bakers from outside had also been resisting efforts to bring them under the association in the state by refusing to register their bakeries in the state.
He said that the influx of all manner of bread products into the state had led to the closure of 70 bakeries, a development that had rendered over 1,200 bakers jobless.
According to him, his members are the ones paying taxes and other levies to the Kogi State Internal Revenue Service to remain in business.
Gabriel who said that the state government was fully aware of the stress his members had been going through as result of the activities of the bakers in the neighbouring states.
(NAN)
