PH Mundial – Port Harcourt Online Newspaper News Across The Region
Related Articles
By John Aamowoh
A woman of God, who is also a distributor of staple baking ingredients, Madam Elisabeth Onuoha, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to pressurize major dealers and producers of flour and sugar, such as Dangote group, Bua and Golden Penny, to reduce the prices of their products “for the sake of poor and vulnerable Nigerians.”
Speaking in an interview with our correspondent in Port Harcourt, Madam Onuoha, said that as “a petty dealer in flour, sugar and other baking ingredients,” she is not happy over the arbitrary increase in the prices of baking materials in the country, adding that such increase, is negatively affecting their businesses.
She explained that the price for a bag of flour and sugar that used to sell at the cost of N6000 and N8000 respectively has now increased to N12000 for a bag flour and N13000 for a bag sugar, frowning at the rumour that the increase came from an alleged meeting by Dangote, Bua and Golden Penny, who are the leading producers of these products.
“The prices of flour, sugar and the rest of other baking items have gone very high to the extent that we cannot afford it again. The flour that we used to buy N6000 a bag has jump to N12000,and the sugar that used to be N8000 has suddenly increase to N13000, the cost of all these products, be it Bua, Dangote and Golden Penny have all increased,” Madam Onuoha explained.
She therefore wondered that in a situation she buys at the cost of N28000, as it is currently the case, excluding transportation and other expenses, how much she has to sell the product to recover her money.
“Take for instance, flour that I just bought for N8000, has suddenly increased to 13000. How am I going to sell it to my customers, she said.
Madam Onuoha urged President Buhari, who she described as father of the nation, to call on the foreign and local industrialists “that have gang up against the interest of the nation to stop their evil plans,” adding that “the evil intention of the foreign industrialists is badly affecting and frustrating petty dealers in the country.”
“I want to beg my President Buhari to call some of the White people doing business here to have a good mind instead of ganging up against the interest of the poor masses. Their actions are really frustrating us the poor ones,” she cries out.
The woman of God maintained that worst aspect of their plight is that most of the companies dealing on these baking items do not allow them to buy on credit, talk less of them accessing bank loan as is the cases with their wealth counterparts, even as she called on the Federal Government to look into their complains before things goes out of hand.
She lamented that most major producers and foreigners are hiding under the cover of VAT and other taxations by the government to perpetrate the act of these arbitrary increases, adding that a situation where this continues, the resulting effect will tell negatively on poor Nigerian families that depend daily on bread and other baked products.
Asked what the traders’ union is doing in this regard, Madam Elisabeth responded thus: “My son, we are many in the union, but this has not really solved the problem of this increase, because, most of the wealthy distributors have connections and can access loans through the bank: while the poor ones are left out to face their own problem. As I am, I don’t have the money for a loan not to talk of collateral,” she explained.
