Published on : 07/06/2022 – 00:03
In Dakar and since Friday evening, the seven flour milling companies have decided to suspend their flour deliveries. They claim the payment of the compensatory premium that the State is slow to pay. An untenable situation that forces professionals in the sector to dig into their cash. Senegal, like other countries on the continent, is suffering from the rise in grain prices, partly due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, where 60% of the wheat consumed in Senegal comes from.
« In fact, this belt is the belt that carries the wheat from the port. There we have six warehouses with a capacity of 45,000 tonnes of wheat. So we bring this wheat here. We crush about 1,300 tons of wheat a day » Les Grands Moulins de Dakar, a historic flour mill in the capital. Deafening machines crush the wheat which descends into large transparent pipes. Here are produced wheat flour as well as animal feed, largely composed of the bran of this cereal.
« At one point, we were selling at a loss, but we were doing it to meet demand because there are people who are already struggling. We were obliged to continue producing. If we continue like this, we will soon close the shop “, explains Gana Diouf who takes care of this department.
« Here is the flour store, you see the toboggan there, it transports the bags. And the trucks go out there. It goes either at the level of our depot, or directly at the level of our customers, distributors or bakers. “, continues the employee.
Cash under strain
In Senegal, the sale price of bags of flour is fixed by the State, regardless of the purchase price of the cereals. ” The compensation was provided for by the State, which explains why today there is an envelope of nearly 10 billion CFA francs that the State owes us. To date it is not yet paid and naturally it calls into question the next orders, details Claude Demba Diop, president of the Association of Industrial Millers of Senegal. If we had to do the truth of the prices, as it happens almost everywhere in the sub-region, we should be around 26,000 francs per bag. Given the approval, we are currently selling the bag at 19,200 CFA francs. »
« We are increasingly uncertain. Because the dollar keeps going up, the barrel of oil increases so the freight follows, lists Claude Demba Diop. The phenomenon of wheat scarcity is also a phenomenon which is topical today because not only are there certain markets which are closing: India has closed, you see the Black Sea market linked to this Russian-Ukrainian war. There are also climatic phenomena. In some countries like France, we are told that there is a drop in harvests. So if you combine these facts, there is reason to worry about a somewhat uncertain future supply. For the moment we are a little waiting for the settlement of this debt to facilitate the next orders. »
The Senegalese President, Macky Sall at the head of the African Union was on a trip to Russia last week. Objective: to plead the cause of the continent to find solutions to this cereal problem.