Millers Association of Zambia (MAZ) says it is looking at possible ways of employing other sources of energy to keep the Milling industry running in light of the current load shedding.
MAZ President Andrew Chintala told Money FM News in an interview that although load management affects all sectors of the economy, being load shedded for longer hours paralyses operations for this crucial industry because Milers fail to run their businesses at a more sustainable basis.
“What hasn’t spared any other industry is load shedding, we don’t know for how long it’s going to take. If you are switched off for 8, 9 or 12 hours, that means quite a lot in terms of the milling industry.”
“So these are some of the challenges but it’s something that has a solution to it but we are still thinking through to see how best possible we can use other alternative sources of energy and still run the business at a more sustainable basis,” Mr. Chintala said.
Mr. Chintala said the other challenge the industry faces in other instances is the none availability of raw materials which is maize grain.
He added that when the Millers experience hiccups in accessing the grain, they have always entered into several agreements with the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to ensure that they get the commodity.
Mr. Chintala however said it is not all the time that Millers get the required maize supplies as they are only given something to help them sustain their operations.
“The major challenges that the industry gets to face sometimes is that when the raw material is in short supply, in most cases when we have difficulties in accessing the grain, the millers have always have entered into agreements with govt through FRA to ensure that they get supply, obviously you will not be able to get what you require, but you will only be able to be given something that will keep you running to sustain your operations.”
“So that’s the major challenge where the country does not record sufficient maize production,” he added.