Mealie meal smugglers have continued facing from the strong arm of the law with the latest being in Kapiri Mponshi where Police seized 400 by 25 Kilograms of the commodity which was destined for a neighbouring country.
The police have also arrested a 27-year-old man identified as David Mandona in connection with the commodity.
ZANIS reports that Central Province Commissioner of Police, Standwel Lungu confirmed the development in an interview, today.
Mr. Lungu said the staple food is believed to have been destined for smuggling to a neighbouring country.
The bags were stacked and concealed in Mandona’s house in East Park residential area.
Mr. Lungu said the police seized the mealie-meal after they raided Mandona’s house following a tip off from members of the public.
Mr. Mandona did not have receipts and failed to explain to police how he came in possession of the mealie-meal.
“ We have arrested a man who was found in possession with 400 bags of mealie-meal stacked in his house and did not explain exactly why he had that amount of mealie meal at once”, Mr.Lungu said.
Mandona will appear in court soon.
Some people and businessmen in the country are hoarding and illegally exporting mealie-meal to the DRC.
Police officers and other security wings have intensified patrols in border points to curb the smuggling of mealie meal into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Parliament heard recently.
Already, a huge consignment of mealie meal is marooned in about 20 shops on the Zambian side at Kasumbalesa border post as shop owners have locked and abandoned their premises following intensified Police patrols in Chililabombwe aimed at curbing smuggling.
Chiliabombwe District Commissioner Stuart Chitumbo has since appealed to the shop owners to avail themselves as they would only be allowed to sell their consignments at the government recommended retail prices in designated trading areas within Chililabombwe.
ZANIS
Stop the price controls . We had this problem before with Kaunda’s price control regime. The MMD did not have this problem because they did not meddle with prices. The RB government just made sure that inputs were supplied in time , farmers were also paid in time. Now the reckless and clueless PF Chimbwis have destroyed the agriculture and food sector. Pathetic Failures with loud mouths and empty heads!
Goncalves, the problem is not with price control. There’s hunger in DRC and the commodity is fetching as much as KR130/bag and our mealmeal traders mostly in the opposition are holding the commodity with a view of transpoting to Congo. When they want to sell localy they hike the prices. How do you expect the government to protect its pipo from such exploitation; ban exports and control the price period. That Banda you are praising are the same pipo sponsoring this scheme
@ Gonclave the problem that you have is that you comment then reason later Mwamba as briefly opened your thinking which was blocked by your ignorance.the traders are preferring to sell their mealie meal in congo were their is anger,but due to the selfishness of these boggers traders,they feel attracted by the escalating prices in congo hence depriving the locals with the commodity and someone says stop the price control.reason with your head not between the legs.
Do you know the scandals MMD created at FRA before you open your mouth wrongly
Nice one,smuggler temunobe
Looks like Mealie meal is the new diamond in Zambia.Awe poseniko amano bane kwena before abantu tabalafwa kunsala.
Pachililabombwe ba TAXI driver nabameya saana.akabunga paboader k120,ngakaingila mu DRC K150.ngakaya kulubumbashi ati ma K220-250. So namayo umo notubunga 4 chili-boader ni k110.akabunga k20 umwine k10 by 10 trips per day bakitwe panshi.
@GO CLAVE WHATEVER, LOOK AT DE REAL FACTORS. GOVT HAS DE MANDETE TO PROTECT HER CITIZENS IN DIS EVENT. IF IT WERE NOT 4 NEIGHBOURING C’TRIES IN DARE NID OF UR COMMODIT DIS WOULDN’T B HAPPENING . U NID 2 SHUT UP SOMETIMES RADA DAN DISPLAY YO IDIOCY.
You are wasting time answering that blogger. Come rain come sunshine, everything that PF does is wrong. And he is right in his mind.
its hight time vi congole started growing their own food ba fi colour
Congoles generally are not hard working like zambians when it comes to farming. Kano ukwiba, ukupokolola and quick business. Even within our compound if your neba is not hard working you will always have problems. Zambians do genuine business not fast cash. Thus why many of you have bougt trucks just for smuggling. Shame!
PF please just remove the price controls. We still love you. We will understand. You just wont manage to patrol all the border perimeters. You will spend more on patrols instead buying medicines in hospitals.
Stupid thinking, policing nsima , no shame? What if Mandoona’s household consumes the quantity alleged to be earmarked for smuggling , are you going to demand for reciepts. What if he is kind donor of mealie to several families in Zambia, are you going to arrest prosecute him for being a kind person.
Stop the UNIP tricks of price control, it belongs to the stone age economics.
SATA your pubic hair has been shaved in public, stupid president, mag do. fuseke, who wants you apart from your illiterate tribal kinsmen?
I see a big business opportunity for Zambia in DRC. We can earn a lot of money from DRC if we became sensible and produced and exported mealie- meal to DRC legally. Botswana does not produce a single grain of maize. They export from South Africa. There are no price controls. Zambia should wake up. Road blocks and raids wont help. Lets regularise the trade and start earning the much needed forex. Temporary solutions will always drag us deeper into poverty. We are sitting on a diamond, guys.
You liberalized and privatized – why is it a big deal what the traders are doing? This situation should actually make us sit up and reconsider our distribution strategies and see how we can ring-fence the local supply without killing the trade opportunities with our neighbors. There must be a better solution than dragging chaps to courts…
The simple solution will be to increase production, why do you wanna waste you money and energy trying to stop people doing business, it’s simple common sense any business person will sale to the highest payer, if the mealie meal is readly available the price will sort it self out, come on guys, get a grip, I’m no being funny but in Zambia we’ve got plenty of farm land, let’s try and use it. Maybe it’s time we spoke to the Chinses, give them farming land on condition they farm 60% local food eg mealie meal and please can we also sort out this problem of storage, we seem to have had this problem since I was 10 yrs old, I’m now 41 yrs old and very little has changed if any. A government is surposed to provide good leaving for its people and for me the way to start is clearn water,
Good health,good education,good housing and jobs etc
why not let the let the demand and supply market determine the prices
ba Chimbwi imwe, how can you arrest some one for just keeping maize at his premises? The problem is YOU dont understand simple economics – go to school, stop being stupid. This is not Kaunda days. Very soon there will be no cooking oil, soap, sugar, etc in the shops. Are you going to be able to police each and every commodity price in this country? That’s what you get when you put a person with rotten teeth and rotten brains in sate house!
I see a big business opportunity for Zambia in DRC. We can earn a lot of money from DRC if we became sensible and produced and exported mealie- meal to DRC legally. Botswana does not produce a single grain of maize. They import from South Africa. There are no price controls. Zambia should wake up. Road blocks and raids wont help. Lets regularise the trade and start earning the much needed forex. Temporary solutions will always drag us deeper into poverty. We are sitting on a diamond, guys.
Earlier on I wrote this same comment. Note that I should have written Botswana imports not exports.
‘Tons of Mealie Meal’ imponded? I thought 400x25kg bags makes only 1 ton.
This is interesting, am a small scale farmer. I grew 7 ha of maize. which survived late delivery of inputs, army worms & high cost of labour. Maize is almost ready for harvest will it survive price control? plse i dont want to sell at 65/50kg. Allow me to sell in Congo so dat congole will pay me good money. they need energy to dance while we toil.
Its 10 Tons not 1 ton