The Central Province Administration has bemoaned that some millers in Kabwe have decided to create artificial shortage of mealie-meal with the hope of instigating high prices of the staple food.
Central Province Permanent Secretary Bernard Chomba says the government has discovered that some millers are holding onto the mealie-meal with the hope that the Government will lift the export ban on mealie-meal so that they can export the commodity to the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“We toured some milling companies in Kabwe on Wednesday before meeting with Food Reserve Agency (FRA) regional marketing coordinator Martin Mangenda to appreciate the availability and pricing of mealie-meal in the region. This follows media reports that the price of the staple food was skyrocketing in the Provincial Capital. We have discovered that some millers are holding onto the mealie-meal with the hope that the Government will lift the export ban on mealie-meal so that they can export the commodity to the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),” he said.
“I must state that President Edgar Lungu is leading a pro-poor Government and is committed to ensuring that the price of the staple food is affordable to every Zambian throughout the country.”
Mr. Chomba has assured that the region has plenty of maize and mealie-meal.
He adds that there is no need for the public to panic over the shortages and has also urged the millers to seek audience with his office in case of any issues that are forcing them to hike mealie-meal prices.
“What we have discovered is that most of the millers in Central Province sell their mealie-meal to Congo DR; and because of the Government’s ban on the expo of selling mealie-meal, most of the millers have switched off their machines just to ensure that they pushed the prices of mealie-meal up and I want to assure you that we are on top of things to ensure there is no artificial shortage of mealie-meal,” said Mr. Choma.
He explains that some millers that were visited complained that the refusal by the FRA to release some maize to millers had forced them to park their milling machines because they cannot manage to buy from traders.
However, FRA regional marketing coordinator Mr Mangenda said it was surprising that millers could claim to have no maize when they bought more grain than the Agency in the last crop marketing season.
He said FRA was however offloading the maize through community sales adding that the Agency was currently releasing the commodity in Serenje district which has applied for the subsidized commodity.

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