Copperbelt Minister Mwenya Musenge has castigated millers for creating artificial mealie meal shortage in the province.
Mr Musenge said after making prompt visits to milling companies in Kitwe that some of them were selling mealie meal above the agreed price with Government.
The minister said in a side interview that he would report his findings to higher authorities for action to be taken against those found wanting and ensure shortage normalises.
Some millers in Kitwe have overpriced the price of the commodity at their depots which traders were buying in bulk and resale at exorbitant prices which consumers could not afford.
Olympic Milling depot opposite Chisokone market has pegged a 25 kilogrammes bag of breakfast at KR52 instead of KR50 as recently directed by President Michael Sata, while a 25 kilogrammes of roller meal was fetching at KR38.
Mpongwe Milling depot in Chimwemwe Township was selling a 25 kilogrammes bag of breakfast at KR50 at its depots which forced some retailers to buy in bulk and resell the commodity as much as KR65.
“The millers are not supporting the Government on this issue. The depots that I have visited have a problem to implement the presidential directive as agreed between Government and millers and this is creating a problem to control the prices of the commodity,” he said.
The minister, who was accompanied by Kitwe District Commissioner Elias Kamanga, said it was regrettable that millers were selling the commodity at retail price instead of wholesale.
Residents of Chimwemwe Township charged that the Mpongwe Milling depot in the area was selling the commodity to unscrupulous traders who were smuggling it DRC.
“The millers were retailing instead of wholeselling the commodity which was creating the shortage and this was compounded by the fact that they sell in bulks to people who resell at exorbitant prices,” they complained.
Ruth Chulu and Faith Mwaba, all Chimwemwe residents, said they had been struggling to buy a single bag of mealie meal in the area for the past one week because of the artificial shortage.
This forced the minister to direct sales persons at Mpongwe depot to immediately start selling the commodity to residents who had been waiting to buy mealie meal for hours.
Meanwhile, Mr Musenge said Government managed to impound 12 trucks laden with 1, 200 bags of mealie meal each during last month which was intended to be smuggled into Democratic Republic of Congo via Kasumbulesa border.
The shortage of mealie-meal on the Copperbelt worsened in November last year affecting Kitwe, Chingola and Chililabombwe with a 25 kilogramme bag of breakfast fetching K75,000 and the Millers Association of Zambia assured that the situation would normalize in few days time.
Its not really a shortage of mealie meal but rather a shortage of ideas.We have a shortage of peace,of trust in govt,of good image abroad,of democracy & national cohesion,a shortage of record forex we once had,of civilised cities with no vendors and heck,even other presidents don’t visit zambia like it used to be.
Meanwhile todays Times of Zambia has quoted Agriculture deputy minister Rodgers Mwewa saying “govt to export excess maize to Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe” surely were are we heading to under this PF govt?
Can we stop tis finger pointing and address the real problem. surely a ministers must have high level of thinking than this. Blame game is an indication of incompetence.
So true it is painful to think about because this problem is on every nsima eating Zambian’s plate.
They ve failed lamentably! Period!
Solving a problem always demands for root cause identification and analysis. These maggots in PF called Ministers have no capacity to do either.
This Musenge is just a street adult in PF who only survived by stealing copper and has no capacity to do a PDCA.
I strongly would love to support the pf, but its becoming a challenge to me, seeing how all of sudden pf is failing to address the mealie meal crisis when for the past 20yrs we had a smooth flow of nsima.
Advice: Leaave meali meal prices to regulate itself.
vipuba ivi va kangiwa ..too much dullness in PF and am happy these bemba lazy chaps who support their maniac are suffering!
This is what happens when you vote for all the wrong reason but with honorable intentions. I think this government should really stop and accept that they are having real problems with how they are governing the country and they should do it fast before they start killing their own people. Mark my word, “A hungry man is an angry man.” In a place where there is deliberate promotion of incompetence, a hungry man is a rabid lion. There will be blood, I pray that day never comes.
Government is bussy acquiring milling machinery from china through fra, trust me all these millers will cry the loudest as they will have to relly on importing maize then sell outside if they so wish. some of these machines are already in durban in route
continue:- to zambia. fra will no longer sell maize to millers as it will proccess it into millie meal and sold at much cheaper prices. should millers want to sell the commodity localy they will then have to compete with fra and notional milling
So why did we have zambian trucks stranded at the kenyan border with tonnes of maize?Is this not the same zambian govt that gave them the export permit?
Same old, same old. Eat Bread and tute