“Bakers are going out of business because of the reduced price of bread and the tax pressure.” An announcement made by Amadou Gaye, president of the National Federation of Bakers of Senegal (Fnbs). The latter sounds the alarm and calls for diligence from the new authorities to get the bakers out of their rut. More than 72 bakeries have already been closed between Touba, Dakar and Fatick.By Amadou MBODJI –
Bread risks being a rare commodity in Senegal, if we are not careful. Bakers are going out of business since the fall in bread prices decided by the new authorities. “We are meeting to discuss the challenges facing the Senegalese bakery sector. Since the decision of the new authorities to lower the price of bread on June 21, 2024, we have witnessed the closure of several bakeries across the country. To avoid being long, I can cite the case of Touba where nineteen bakeries, plus nine, makes twenty-eight closed bakeries. In Dakar, our last count showed thirty-seven; in Fatick, seven bakeries were closed,” revealed Amadou Gaye, to attract the attention of the authorities. The president of the National Federation of Bakers of Senegal (Fnbs) hosted a press conference yesterday at their headquarters, in the presence of other members of the structure he leads. So, he said, the situation is very worrying.
More than 72 bakeries already closed
“There are bakeries which are closed because of taxation which is a danger for this country. Today, we have a concentration of bakeries which are closed, because of taxes,” says Mr. Gaye. “Too many taxes are killing bakers. We cannot be told that bread is a social product and that we cannot benefit from social pricing. Bread is not sold at its true price. This is not the truth of the prices. If we applied the truth of the prices, the bread should cost at least 200 to 250 CFA francs,” argues the president of the Fnbs. Which causes other bottlenecks to the functioning of the bakery sector.
“There are bakeries which are closed because of a social problem too. There are bakers who can no longer continue, because they have no recipes.
The Senegalese baking industry is in crisis. An industry which is characterized by more than thirty-thousand direct jobs, forty-thousand indirect jobs, six hundred billion in turnover. 3% of gross domestic product (GDP).
-Should a state be able to let this continue? So, this situation has led to disastrous economic and social consequences,” denounces Mr. Gaye.
He considers that this also results from the non-application of the regulations and its consequences on the price of bread and the weight of bread. “This situation is aggravated by the lack of involvement of other ministries to support the Ministry of Trade and Industry. The Ministry of Commerce is trying to do its best to resolve the problems. I can attest here to his firm desire to find solutions for us. But as industrialists, what we need is action. This is why we wanted to hold this press conference, to call the population to witness, to explain our problems,” declares Amadou Gaye.
The Fnbs thus demands, as soon as possible, the sanitation of the sector with compliance with the provisions of decree 22-117 and decrees 113-118 of March 3, 2020, decree 00-97-93 of May 13, 2020 and decree 118-75 of April 26, 2022.
“The Hydrocarbons Directorate is in the process of blocking the diesel quotas to which bakers are entitled,” says Mr. Gaye, who finds this abnormal. The other constraint raised is the increase in inputs. “The yeast cost 20,000 CFA francs. Today, this product costs between 26,000 and 30,000 CFA francs,” they are offended. This increase, according to him, “is simply due to taxes, the prices of yeast and improvers increased internationally”.
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