The scarcity is not unconnected with the fact that bread makers, dealers, and consumers have not yet come to terms with the cassava bread policy.
Bala Yahuza, a supermarket attendant said he does not know the cassava bread. “Sincerely, I don’t know it; I don’t know how it tastes. However, if our suppliers bring it, we will display it. It will be for the customers to decide to buy or not. The bread we have been selling is the normal wheat flour bread.”
Mr Elias Mathew of Goodhealth bakery, Abuja said his company has not yet started using cassava to make bread. He explained, “In as much as it is a good policy, bread makers are yet to implement it. People are not used to cassava bread. Some customers complained that they consume a lot of cassava in their regular meals, why should they consume cassava bread again. Also, on our part, getting access to cassava flour is not easy.
“I don’t know if there is any arrangement by government to buy cassava from farmers and sell to us. We need where we can go, easily pay for the processed cassava flour and collect it in bags to come and work with. In the absence of such, it is going to be a difficult task for us. Do we have adequate processing plants for cassava like wheat that you just go buy well packaged for use?”
There are indications that Nigerians are going to buy bread at higher cost. This is because of the July,1 2012 deadline set for the imposition of levy on the major raw material used in making the commodity. This was designed to implement the much touted federal government policy on cassava bread.
Early this year, President Good luck Jonathan announced that from July 1, wheat grain will attract a 15 percent levy and 65 percent levy on wheat flour.
The president, while presenting the 2012 budget to the joint sitting of the National Assembly unfolded an economic plan targeting total removal of concession or waiver on import duty on rice and wheat.
According to Jonathan, from July 1, 2012, wheat flour will attract a levy of 65 percent to bring the effective duty to 100 percent, while wheat grain will attract a 15 percent levy which will bring the effective duty to 20 percent.
“If this happens, the price of flour, a key component in the baking of bread will rise from N5,700 to N6,555 per 50kg bag. Consequently, the price of bread will rise by 15 percent from N200 to N230 per loaf, on the average,” Mathew postulated.
He said before July 1, some distributors and importers stockpiled wheat flour.
“This is bound to translate into higher freight and storage costs, which could be transferred to consumers very soon. In such scenario, the price of bread will go up,” he said.
Mallam Ali Dogo a tea seller in Kubwa, Abuja told our reporter that the price of bread still remains the same but his distributor alerted him on Monday when he went to take delivery of bread that the new price regime may kick-start.
Dogo said, “He said there may be a slight increase in bread price. He advised me to sensitize my customers so that they don’t complain when it starts.”
A bread distributor also confirmed receiving hints from his suppliers that there will be adjustment any moment from now as the deadline has passed.
“Yes, the manager of one of my suppliers told me that there is a government policy that could bring some increase in bread prices. But I don’t understand what it is all about. My own is that, whenever there is an increase in bread price, customers’ patronage reduces and we don’t want that,” Michael Chukuemeka a bread seller said.
Meanwhile, consumers are apprehensive. Mrs Cynthia Adagazu, a bread consumer said, “Whenever there is hike in bread price, bakers reduce the quality in a bid to balance up the cost and maintain customer patronage. I have always noticed that.”
She said though people appreciate the new cassava bread initiative, many are still in love with wheat bread. “I and my husband are in love with wheat bread that is sugar free but my children prefer others. That is the beauty of variety. Thus, it is unfair to increase levy on wheat. Let all the commodities be in the market and let consumers make their choices,” she observed.
It would be recalled that the House of Representatives recently rejected a bill seeking to make it mandatory for the inclusion of cassava in the production of all flour products in Nigeria. The bill which is an executive bill had proposed that it was incumbent on the parliament to enact a law in that respect, in line with President Jonathan’s initiative on cassava.
A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) member from Edo State, Mr Peter Edeh, who led the opposition against the bill, argued that compelling manufacturers of flour to include cassava would amount to compelling Nigerians to eat products that might be injurious to their health and against their wish.
He said, “30 to 40 percent of Nigerians are diabetic and it will be unfair to compel them to eat cassava products since most diabetic patients are barred from consuming foods such as cassava. “It will be infringing on people’s rights and endangering their lives to compulsorily include cassava in what they eat.”
A small scale farmer in Nasarawa State, Titus Ayuba said the cassava bread policy is quiet a brilliant one but has some lapses. He said consistency will be a challenge and it will certainly increase the cost of basic food products such as bread and rice in the coming months. However, he said “opportunities are open for local manufacturers who intend to go into flour and rice production locally.”
