Government has made provision for households in rural areas of Northern Province where millers have failed to reduce the price of mealie-meal by directing the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to sell each household 5 50kg of maize per month.
Northern Province minister Gerry Chanda said the programme would however, be closely monitored to make sure it was not abused.
Colonel Chanda who was locked in a meeting with millers and FRA officials for most of the morning however, told members of the Press afterwards that KR50 threshold for mealie-meal would be enforced in Kasama with the assistance of the municipal council on Saturday.
“In Kasama we don’t seem to have complied with the directive and have shown disregard and it is with in mind that I had a meeting with stakeholders,” he said.
All retailers have since been advised to make sure prices are adjusted in line with Government policy of making the country’s staple food more affordable.
“From my meeting this morning it became clear that there are challenges to compliance. Local millers have indicated and advanced valid reasons why they facing challenges in reducing prices for areas like Northern Province.
“For instance in Kasama the supply of electricity is not consistent and millers have had situations where machinery is affected and fail to meet overheads,” Col Chanda said.
The Northern-based millers made a request to meet the President Michael Sata so they could have an opportunity to talk with the Head of State over their various problems with compliance.
Their argument was that in lieu of compliance challenges, if a unilateral pricing mechanism is imposed, they would have to close shop or scale down on their workforce.
Col Chanda said before the meeting, he was ready to move and enforce the directive but as a compromise, Kasama-based retailers would be given until Saturday to comply.
Retail prices remain at an average of KR60 across the provincial centre.
Meanwhile, the price of mealie meal is still skyrocketing in Mwense District in Luapula Province as it is going at K61 500 per 25 kilogram for breakfast while Roller meal at K59 000 the same quantity.
District Commissioner DC Victor Kasuba confirmed in an interview yesterday that all out lets in the area had not reduced the price of the staple food dedespite Government’s interventions.
Mr Kasuba said he was not happy with the move because in Nchelenge District the prices of mealie meal was reduced to K50 000 breakfast and Roller was costing at K49 000.
The District Commissioner said Mwense was nearer to Mansa than Nchelenge were all the retailers were ordering their commodities from the millers.
He said he was going to engage all the retailers in the district to find out as to why they had not reduced prices of the staple food in conformity with Government’s directives.
‘’I can confirm with you that price of meali meal in my district is still going up. For example a 25 kilograme of AGP breakfast is going at K61 500 while Roller of the same kilogrammes is costing K59 000,but I will not late the situation to continue.
‘’You know I am surprised you can find that in Nchelenge the prices are not as expensive as they are here. And I can say that I am very worried in the next few days we can find that a 25 kilogramme is costing at K70 000.I tell you I am not happy and I will soon move in and arrest the situation,’’ he said.
Mr Kasuba said that he felt that residents were extremely exploited and as the Government representative he was not going the situation to continue.
He observed that some people in the district were too poor to raise such amount of money to buy meali meal hence if the situation was not curbed majority of them would be suffering.
Mr Kasuba said he had since informed his counterpart in Mansa Ms Mary Kauseni to engage the millers in talks to find the lasting solution to the skyrocketing of the staple food prices.
Recently the country had seen the increase of price of meali meal the situation that had prompted President Micheal Sata to direct the reduction of the price of the staple food in all the parts of the country.
No problem. It is not the people’s suffering but the possibility of riots I was worried about particularly in Lusaka. Kasama is OK even at 120pin a bag. They cant affect my government.
i wiil relcocate and buy tons and sell to DRC.
And what will stop households of 1 person taking the bag to sell in Congo at inflated price.
And just how in the world are you going to monitor households? Is this like introduction of some kind of the UNIP coupons to track households?
I can’t believe we are now down to rationing after a bumper harvest.
For first time I agree with this MMD bootlicker.
Actually it is PF that has created this problem- solve it! That is what happens when you put kaponyas to run things: even simple things look complicated. President is not just there to appoint and fire and threaten or harass people – find effective solutions to the problems.
MMD chief sense sense. PF is creating more problems than solutions with there short term thinking.
Bembas must grow more maize to press the prices downwards instead of running for public offices in order to steal public funds.
It is not the growing – it is the marketing. There’s ALWAYS enough maize. Problem is marketing. Why is guy Scott so quiet?
Could some one shed light on this escalating price of m/meal? I thought we had enough stock in the country considering that we had a bumper harvest last year. Does it mean that FRA if failing to supply the millers? Or does it mean that we don’t have enough reserve stock? Why should demand out stripe supply? Can our government revisit the system of supply to the millers? If we have enough stock in the country, then I don’t see any reason as to why demand could out-stripe supply. Are there cartels being formed by the millers? Why? Why? Why?
Govt only bought a small amount of maize through FRA. They wanted the millers to buy their own stocks. Millers and private buyers bought maize – some chose to export and others will choose to mill and sell at their own price. Now govt bans exports and wants to force them to sell mealie meal at fixed price – well below what they spent and there is a shortage… Obviously prices will go up!
We seem not to understand business nowadays. Kasama has no or few millers if any. What is needed is to invest in other people who can do the milling as well
Who is going to invest in a business with controlled prices? Especially when those controls are arbitrary, non-transparent, and threatening?
PF chimbwi-no-plan. You buy maize from peasant households and then sell it back to them. That is just fantastic!!! Get out of government because you have failed!
MMD bought maize from people, PF try to sell back to the people.
The king commanded to reduce price, instead the subjects rise price even higher.
What a disaster government….
People voted and got their just rewards.
PF don’t understand the law of cause and effect: they have created the maize disaster – and what is amusing is that they think they can solve it by pronouncements! Very funny indeed. Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come!
As an agri business specialist, i have maintained over the years that this whole maize sector will soon implode. While i dont support subsidies, am relaxed on using them to improve production/productivity, however subsidizing marketing is a terrible mistake which goes against our loose beliefs of free market policies. Today, the basic principles of supply and demand no longer apply for maize. Record bumper harvests for 3 years running, high maize supply and high mealie meal prices!! I wonder what the price shall be when we have low maize supply?? Commodity markets are complicated, no wonder the Kaponyas in PF have no clue what to do!!
cnp
This is a failed government. They cannot get their act right even on the most basic of issues such as our staple food i.e. Mealie Meal. This was not a problem until this government came in which says a lot about their style of competence. To put it simply, they do not have a clue.
sorry, mean’t to say “style of governance”
They should ask GBM to reduce in Kasama that is his maize. Why isnt he following the presidential order?
In view of this decision by govt to sell maize to residents, I will ask Moses Muteteka ampeleko ka hammer mill na ine. I believe he could still have some hidden smoewhere!!
And daily they are busy insulting our farmers in s.p and central province, they have no idea evn tho they have the money to buy essential comodities like food, but without the farmers producing, there wont be anythng to buy.i thnk some 1 should start telling these farmers that this pf thng doesnt care about them anymore, they are jst peasants like my bemba brothers keep refering them to.
Increase minimum wage and the miller passes it on to the consumer then you go to the miller and tell him to reduce it while Labour Minister Shamenda when told to dialogue over minimum wage told the Stakeholders that it is final.By the way has anyone noticed the loud silence from the few level headed members of this government[Scot,Chikwanda,Wina etc]
CNP VINTAGE
FRA has the capacity to buy maize fom farmers but the only problem is the money is always pocketed. FRA in its current form is not viable its just a conduit for government to steal money.
I hope this meali meal problem won’t escalate into food riots of the 80’s. It certainly looks like the govt has no clue how to sort it out. But how this seemingly simple problem came about is something to worry about. Could it be that the govt actually don’t know what to do about this? What would happen if we suddenly got landed with a real emergency? Also the suggested solutions, that is, FRA selling directly to the consumers, sounds more like crackpot logic. Is it going to work?
Is this what you call chimbwinomics or is it Ukwanomics?
This the reward of tribalism, corruption, regionalism in the country. why cant we apply some knowledge gained from MBR if any at all.
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