A Civic leader in Chief Muchila’s area in Namwala has expressed worry at the number of briefcase businessmen who have invaded the area and are buying maize from farmers at exploitative prices.
In an interview with ZANIS, Namakube ward councilor Japhet Ngalaba, said a lot of farmers risk facing hunger again next year as they are cheated by the businessmen to sell their produce at low prices.
He said farmers in the area are selling a 50 Kilogramme bag of maize at between K18,000 and K24,000, which he described as very worrying.
Mr Ngalaba said he has held meetings to advise farmers in the area against selling their produce at such low prices but the response has been negative.
He explained that the other problem has been that, due to the hunger situation in the area, some farmers had obtained loans from businessmen to support the food needs of their families from last year until March this year.
He, however, noted that despite these problems, farmers in the area are likely to record a bumper harvest and called on government to announce the floor price of maize to prevent farmers from further exploitation by dubious businessmen.
And Mr Ngalaba has said the provision of health services to the people in the area is below the required standards due to understaffing at Muchila clinic.
He stressed that the health institution was manned by only two health staff against a population of over 20,000, adding that sometimes officers deserted the health institution, leaving patients unattended to.
“Sometimes, these two health staff go for workshops for close to a week at times and you will find patients are not attended to,” complained Councilor Ngalaba.
He appealed to the Ministry to consider sending health staff to help people in the area to enhance service provision.
Meanwhile, a teacher at Itapa Basic School has complained of understaffing at the school saying the problem has lowered the teaching standards.
Mr Goodfellow Chatyoka told ZANIS that the school was manned by only two teachers against 593 pupils.
He called on the Ministry of Education to consider sending more teachers to the institution to uplift the education standards at the school.
ZANIS/ENDS/FM/EB.
hmmm! sad reading! Thats taking poor farmers for granted! Whats is K18,000 honestly?????
You see, this is already happening, farmers are being cheated by crooked busness men who are buying the 50kg bag of maize at k18000. Please Gov”t announce the price of maize before farmers finish selling all their maize to the crooks.
Vipubas are the farmers themselves. you cant sell 50kg for 18pin.
This is what happens when the Federal Government has no control. Again the Govt is late in fixing the price and also late in the process of buying maize from corporate farmers. Now you wonder why some Biz men are using this loop hole? If I were a Bizman in this area, I would do exactly that.
Brothers and sisters dont blame the poor farmers for selling their maize at 18pin. Most Farmers’ source of income comes once in a year. So the past 10months they have been suffering without money to buy their basic needs of the househood like salt,etc
So its the govt who to be blamed for not announcing the maize price in time even if they start buying maize at a later date. So bbwana Chituwo announce the price this week all will be well. Twalumba.
Who pays the piper calls the tune.It will be hard for the farmers to increase their earnings under such circumstances.
This is a sad situation. On the two nurses and teachers respectively, the problems is bad conditions of service currently offered by the MMD GRZ. Many teachers and nurses are now opting to work in private clinics and schools in towns and cities as opposed to being dumped in villages.
How I wish the MMD GRZ would work towards developing rural areas also. Anyway, the villagers must beign to check their voting manners seriously as 2011 is near. There is need to remove the MMD GRZ so that others can try to serve the Zambian people too.
This is what the UNZA academician Dr. Gelson Tembo was talking about the other day – log on to http://www.lusakatimes.com/?p=10911. We seem not to have a crop marketing policy. Even when we have enough grain in the country, we would rather bring in GMOs at the expense of our local farmers.