Major retail outlets in Livingstone today ran out of breakfast meal after residents bought the commodity massively following the reductions in prices.
Both Livingstone Shoprite town centre outlet and Shoprite Mosi-oa-tunya Square outlet did not have breakfast meal by midday today but they had few bags of roller meal.
Spar Livingstone only had six bags of breakfast meal and few roller bags by midday as residents continued buying the commodity in large quantities.
National Milling Corporation (NMC)’s 25 kg bag of breakfast meal, which previously fetched the prices of around K59, 000 or KR 59 in Shoprite, is today being sold around K50, 000 or KR 50.
At Livingstone Spar, NMC’s 25 kg bag of breakfast meal is also being sold at K50, 000 or KR 50.
At Dambwa Central Market, a 25 kg bag of breakfast meal is also sold at K55, 000 or KR 54 while a 25 kg bag of roller meal is being sold at K40, 000 or KR40.
On Monday, President Michael Sata directed millers to reduce mealie meal prices.
Soon after President Sata’s directive, Southern Province Minister Josephine Limata visited Maramba Market and NMC depots and urged traders as well as the milling firm to reduce its prices in line with Government policy.
During her tour, some traders told Ms Limata that NMC officials were also selling mealie meal at the market and hence disadvantaging traders.
“It is unfortunate that some officials at National Milling are selling mealie meal inside markets and competing with our people.
Them they are eating with both hands by selling the commodity at wholesale price and also selling inside the markets and hence killing our Zambian people,” Ms Limata said.
“A meeting with the millers to increase production” or with “citizens to stop eating too much”… ECONOMICS at play.
Spot on, soon will all be told to control our eating habits seems tulelya sana than the farmers can produce
Elo lwanya nomba, back mu UNIPI
The roots of PF are UNIP
#1 Nice one, I bet they will summon the nation to start House and order them to stop eating too much and bring demand down
Natusela balebombako, soon the presido will address the nation to control how much we eat so as to sustain the food stocks
I pity PF Nafipena left right & center. These days you cant find anything good in the news its all chaos
Our dear President is a genius!
Genius in creating chaos and division
Ba meek what chaos you UPND chaps your bitterness will kill you. you can not see anything good in what MCS does. shame
Kantanshi you are free to tell us what he has done perhaps some of us don’t see it
By the way am not UPND, am just an analyst, politicians seem to have the same genes in short they are all the same but PF seem to be worse
Our president exhibits the bad tendencies of UNIP and a CORRUPT CONSTABLE.
Pipo could be buying for resale, afterall, mealie meal seems to be a money spinner currently. I will not be surprised to see the price in compounds at even higher prices than what is being complained of.
The shortage could partly caused by Zimbabweans from Vic Falls Town. They always buy commodities in bulk. Supplies meant for Livingstone are in actual fact are also sustaining another town across the border. This is expected because Zambia has a ZANU-PF praise singer for a president.
Now that`s one hell of a record in panic buying history.
Mr Sata / Chenda / FRA / Millers / etc
Do we have enough maize reserves to offlaod from FRA January to October 2013
a, What is our monthly consumption as a country
b, How much tonnage does FRA need to offload monthly to flood the market
c, How much tonnage is FRA holding currently
d, How may months from now will FRA buy maize (September?? ). =8 months
e, When can FRA be ready to distrubute maize bought around sept-nov 2013 (december??)
f, Operation flood market can only work if c > b x (d+2)
This is an equation that needs urgent answers. People like Sata, Kabimba, Nsanda cant appreciate this.
Happy new year
Sorry our FRA reserve are too low we miscalculated and donated a lot of tonnage to Zimbabwe ‘s robert Mugabe where we got the name PF. We thot we would do a ka bumper harvest alas army worms and late supply of farming in puts messed us up big time. Give us more seleni tubombeko
Bafikala were is the bumper harvest kanshi?
It is clear that these guys have no capacity to solve this crisis.Offloading FRA maize to flood the market and consequently bring down the price looks good but it won’t work.Its like sending a kid to fetch water in a bucket that has a hole .The kid will make countless trips but u won’t get the water!!!.CNP should first repeal Shamenda’s SI and it will help him start all over again .PERIOD.
Really the Increased price put many families on fasting. Good that they have broken the fast now. Soon the bulky buying will end.
Peace and Prosperity to Mother Zambia.
hetred wl nt take our country anywhere.i feel thts good and it mst be appreciated by all wel meaning zambians
The government should just zero rate milling equipment’s so that we have alot of millers or hammer mills that way we will creat stiff competition which will result into price reduction. The mealie meal prizes are just being manipulated by few selfish people. I would also encourage citizens to be ultilising hammer mills at the market a bag of 50kg maize cost less than a 25kg bag of mealie meal so why are people suffering just wanting to buy branded mealie meal!!! lets wake up..
You are spot on man. We need stiff competition with these devils. Let ave more small hammer mills.
Agreed, GRZ should encourage FRA to be releasing minute stocks for retail by members of the public, sice hammermills are relatively inexpensive, people can be milling their own maize meal.
Some farmers would rather grow tobacco this season due to govt interference and low input support for this maize while some miller would rather produce stock feed.
so brace for the worst next year .
1) I will demolish shanty towns and build better “planned houses in 90 days.(ati tafakamo na ma shower)
2) When PF comes into power there will be no load-shedding, no abuse of the public media and we will do away with the Public Order Act because it’s a colonial law.
3) PF will create employment for the youths( tell the youths to smoke chamba for the last time today because when PF comes into power there will no time for them to smoke.)
4) Better sanitation for everyone, 46 years of independence Zambians can not be using pit latrines. Under PF cholera will a thing of the past.
5) We will increase bags of fertilizer for our farmers.
6) People driven constitution within 90 days. Will also enact the Freedom of Information Bill.
7) Reintroduce new taxes for the mines (windfall tax?)
8)
) Reintroduce new taxes for the mines (windfall tax?)
8) Build high/secondary schools in every ward. Children from George compound are performing bad because they are failing to mingle with children from Kabulonga.
9) We shall not employ cadres as civil servants( district commissioners, ambassadors, permanent secretaries, etc) those jobs are for professionals.
10) All small businesses will be for the Zambian people there is no way the Chinese all the way from China can be coming here to cook nshima and sell chickens at Soweto martket. Umwina chaina alikwata ichalo chakwe na imwe ba Pikiti lesa alimipela ichalo chenu.
Millers have foresight ,they are not counting on maize in FRA warehouses ,but maize being eaten by army worms.
Back to UNIP days when you would queue for Mealie meal only to be told it has run out. Meanwhile you spent the whole night pa line.
When Mulongoti comes to power, we shall build bridges. ‘Applause from the crowd,ehhhhhhhhhhhh’. Where there are no rivers, we shall create rivers and build bridges, YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYa ebaume abaaaaaa.
It seems state house is about living in those days:
Those days national airline.
Those days the value of the kwacha
Those days UBZ .
Those days control the price of mealie-meal.
Those days unip came out coz of mealie- meal.
Bushe ba LT what problem do you have with english? Ati Residences?????Takwaba
My dream Zambia is coming.
For three years in a row Rupiah Banda produced bumper harvests back to back. It required policy, management and consistence. Central for us peasant farmers was the Farmers Input Suppot Programme (FISP). It was predictable and reliable. As of now the FISP is in disaaray. Fertiliser support has been sharply reduced. So far only basal dressing has bben deliverd and it was late. Up till now ammonium nitrate fertiliser which used to come in November has still not been delivered. This fertiliser is not free. We pay our contribution through the co operative societies. In two weeks time, if the fertiliser does not arrive our maize crop will go to waste. We peasant farmers will lose our food security and the government may have to import maize to feed the people in the towns while we starve.
Our neighboring Zimbabweans should be stopped buying and taking away our mealie meal through the Vic falls border.We see these guys carrying the bags on their bicycles and out colleagues at the border just let loss, F.u.c.k
The bumper harvest was on paper #24 the cost to it was somthing you would not like to look at due to inflated logistics, thiefts by both farmers and FRA workers, banks and the list is endless,the input support progm was fine on time but needed to be reconstructed hence the few delays,hop the PF connects the supply chain on time
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