By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
The Association of Professional Chefs of Nigeria (APCN), called on their employers to increase their salaries, citing many challenges faced by the professionals.
The association made the call in Abuja, while briefing journalists on the just concluded West Africa Chefs Food Festival (WAFFEST) held in Ghana recently .
The President of the association, Chef Paulinus Okon, said Chefs welfare needed to be increase to 100thousand Naira and over.
“ Chiefs usually receive 40-50 thousand Naira as monthly salary, Iam appealing to our employees to upgrade our salary for increment.
“We cannot compare our salaries to our counterparts in other African countries ”.
Okon also appealed to government at all levels and private sector for support to boost the profession.
“Government and private sector support is very vital and critical for the development of our profession and tourism sector as a whole”.
Speaking on WAFFEST 2022, the president said team Nigeria when with 40 chefs made the country proud by wining two brown madders out of the 16 west Africa countries that participated in Accra Ghana added that the Nigeria also won best in jolly rice .
He mentioned few among the powerful team that brought the meddlers back which include Chef Godfrey Mario Odoh chef Goodness Ejiofor and Chef Amos Emmanuel Adebayo .
He thanked the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), for it’s continues support, stating that the association need more support from the government because , “Whatever we are doing we are doing for the national food cultural heritage and of course we are portraying the good image of our dear nation.
Giving more insight on their trip, he explained that, “Our journey to Ghana was hectic and it was not just cooking dishes but to also display our national dishes and that is also a way of showcasing our own food. So it has been so stressful and early this year we contributed money to organized our own congress and it was not easy. So the government should come in to support the association so that we can position ourselves the way it should be.”
The association also called on government to establish the ministry of Tourism as that there is no state in Nigeria that do not tourist attractions, adding that ministry of tourism help to develop our Gross Domestic Product ( GDP).
According to Okon, it is important that the government throws its weight behind the association in its quest to develop the profession and Nigeria food culture.
He specifically requested for the sponsorship of its members by both the government corporate bodies as well good welfare packages.
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