Thursday, March 28, 2024

President Lungu meets Millers over Escalating Mealie Meal Prices

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President Lungu discussing with cabinet ministers at State House shortlly after a meeting with  Sahrawi President on Tuesday, January 10,2017-Picture by THOMAS NSAMA
President Lungu discussing with cabinet ministers at State House shortlly after a meeting with Sahrawi President on Tuesday, January 10,2017-Picture by THOMAS NSAMA

President Edgar Lungu today held a fruitful meeting with the leadership of the Millers Association of Zambia on the escalating mealie meal prices.

The President was accompanied to the meeting by Finance Minister Hon. Felix Mutati, Agriculture Minister Hon. Dora Siliya, Commerce and Trade Minister Hon. Margaret Mwanakatwe, Agriculture Permanent Secretary Mr Julius Shawa, Food Reserve Agency (FRA) Executive Director Mr Chola Kafwabulula and Senior State House Aides, while the Millers Association of Zambia (MAZ)was led by its Chairperson Mr Andrew Chintala.

Accordint to the statement released to the media today by State House Press Aide Amos Chanda, the two parties exchanged an open and frank conversation over the price of the staple commodity and the President emphasised that the Government and millers were partners hence should always work together to ensure that the interest of the people especially the poor were protected.

The President has directed the Minister of Agriculture to hold another followup meeting with the Millers and Grain Traders Association tomorrow to work out final details on how Government and relevant market players will work to ensure that market fundamentals were not manipulated to exploit consumers.

Meanwhile, the maize export ban will remain in force until further notice.

51 COMMENTS

    • In all honest, I have never understood why zambians rely on Meali meal.

      try Potatoes, Rice, Spaghetti, and you will have a longer life , like people living in the west.

      Mealie Meal and Nshima is for Poor people. People who eat that here are laughed at, and certainly its not served in any restaurant be it an African one. Yuk

      Thanks

      BB2014,16

    • Chapona just doesn’t seem to appreciate the systemic nature of business and how it interacts with the overall economy. He wants to sort out issues in Siloses and not looking at how the each affect each other eg. Diesel is the fundamental in production & distribution and unlike petrol has only dropped by 68 ngwee..cost of borrowing is high 35-40% Toll fees etc.

    • African leaders are a joke but even more so the people that elect them. New Ghana President didn’t even bother to write his own speech. He plagiarized Clinton and Bush’s previous speeches.

    • We are interested in results of these meetings and travels, not how many of them have been held. How do you label the meeting fruitful when there are no results?

    • Where is my brother jay jay who has limited vocabulary and only uses 4 words : lazy bum really laughable.
      ama zambians awe

    • ECL is a great leader full of wisdom, and understanding.

      Aristotle was accused of being dull because, most of the time, the majority of the people could not understand what he was saying.

      Albert Einstein was said to be mad because many could not duel on his level of thinking. They grasped nothing, at all, each time he spoke.

      Am seeing those moments repeating time after time. When people fall short of understanding they will assign you a name.

      Even here some try to think and the moment their brains lock, they issue insults as their most valued contribution.

    • The President is making an effort to reduce the mealie meal prices that have been on the rise thanks to evil greedy millers of the likes of GBV and yet many UPND bloggers opt to insult, this is why these chaps will remain cursed. How does a blood thirsty animal such as many of the UPND bloggers expect anything good when they are bitter and conceited, full of lies and only wish evil on their political opponents. No wonder they will always be a curse to themselves.

    • Sorry but this president doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. To start with, whenever you see a president meddling with a private company like this, you know he has no clue what he’s doing. Because in a free market economy, the private companies determine the prices of their commodities, and not the President. This is what leads to companies shutting down and moving out of the country if they’re international companies. He needs to figure out what’s causing the increase in the prices of mealie meal, and how he can help more businesses to be established in order to foster competition, which would help bring the prices down — but not this unnecessary veiled presidential regulation of prices, obviously meant to save face. High mealie meal prices is also an indicator of a lousy…

    • 2020vision

      You have been preaching about dropping of prices of everything and inflation, now we hear of increasing staple food prices ? Can you update us on the improving economic outlook pleas, like how many jobs have been created and the price of maize meal ?

    • Grow your own maize if you want it cheap. Maize does not grow in a kantemba, iwe kaponya. It’s the bakachema who you have been sneeribg at who grow your maize. Now just pay up or uzanya manzi!

  1. I hope Zambia will lodge a complain to Zimbabwe over the disGrace Marufu Mugabe’s recent swap of a debt to China for 35 young elephants, eight lions, 12 hyenas and a giraffe. These animals are migratory, they belong not only to Zimbabwe but to all its neighbours. Now, how could this disgraceful gold digger swap these regional animals for a debt owned to China. And you know what,this debt was incurred in 1998 when Zimbabwe sent troops and bought equipment from China to help President Laurent Kabila in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). And Marufu’s sister is by the way Joseph Kabila’s wife, just how shameless could these daughter of Monomutapa Changamire Dombo be!

  2. Miller cartels brought KK down. If need be let’s nationslize the milling industry or let foreigners run the industry. We’ve seen how Dangote has brought sanity in the cement industry. Before Dangote came on the scene, cement had reached k105/bag. Now the same companies are selling cheaper than Dangote.

  3. Empower small scale farmers to produce more maize, the price will come down once you flood the market with cheap maize.

    • This will not happen as PF are so vindictive that they delivered farming inputs very late in UPND strongholds as punishment for not voting for PF. PF are incapable of running a successful economy as they don’t understand the long term implications of their silly vindictive slapbacks.

  4. what did he want with the millers,to ask them to reduce the way he did with ERB,or maybe he does not know why mealie meal keeps going up,we need details of what was discussed, I hope he did not try to bully them into reducing the price…

    • Lungu believes in governing by diktat. That is why he declared a cost reflective electricity tariff increase of 340% early last year only to back down after 3 months when citizens protested. No consultation, no simulations, no thinking, no analysis. Just orders – to please his narrow constituency. No wonder he is a chronic flip-flopper.

  5. when we tell you Zambia needs someone who understands economics you think we don’t know what we mean.. these are the results

  6. …reminds me of a father who takes his wife and eleven children to a clinic and asks the nurse….’teach me about family planning…..’.
    …you sell all the maize to Malawi and Zimbabwe..remove subside, increase fuel and you turn around wondering why the meal meal price is that high…
    …that follow up meeting just tells us that the meeting ended in stale mate…or atleast the millers ‘won’…..

    • When will that be? The price of millie meal has been on an increase since PF came into power.
      Many have gone hungry for too long and resulting vices have already done damages to the economy.
      Economic management is important

  7. So this president Lungu does not understand fundamentals to pricing on the market are generally influenced by energy costs at all stages.

  8. Once upon a time we heard that solar powered hammer mills will be in every district in Zambia and the price of mealie meal will be reduced tremendously. What has happened to that story? Is it another myth? Or was someone hallucinating under the influence of Jameson?

  9. A dull president who wants to have his cake and eat it. Increase maize floor price is increasing price of mealie meal plus fuel, farming inputs.

    Where are his chinese solar hammermills? Let the millers with their privately bought maize charge economic prices or they will be milling stockfeed only.

  10. While the government team led by Lungu used the heart in the discussions the millers must have laid down inarguable facts on how the pricing was being arrived at with some level of profit! I can imagine there being no argument to presented facts government may have asked the millers if there is no way they can reduce the price and the millers asking in turn what incentive government would avail to offset their loss! Stuck for resolution there and then, the Minister of Agriculture was tasked to go and engage with other stakeholders as ZESCO, transporters and, the tax body for some solution and then meet again with the millers if the worked out rebate would be acceptable towards reducing mealie meal pricing! Just my fantasy of things on discussions being “fruitful”!

  11. Maize is a stock feed. We need to diversify crops and eat other staples like rice, bananas, potatoes etc. Nsima is a driver for high blood pressure and diabetes. Ask yourself why other humans don’t eat this cursed crop!!!

    • Gaba we are used to nshima like crazy. For me I cannot even pretend. I’m a nshima person. I read someone saying “nshima is for poor people”. Yes we are poor and so we depend on nshima. The only cause of high mealie meal prices are the huge exports of the commodity to other countries like DRC(smuggling) and Malawi($34m maize scandal)

  12. Flip flippers indeed. The budget has just come into effect and they are saying the maize export ban still remains. Muttati told us during the budget presentation that bans will no longer apply as government will charge 10% on maize exports, am I dreaming or what? Do these people really know what they are doing in government? First, you remove subsidies, increase fuel, dununa us with untold loadshading meaning that these millers will now use more diesel with generators, and you expect the price to go down. RB cannot even advise your drunkard because he was riding on Levy’s sound economic management style and not this drunken economic theory from chawama, were they dream prices come down like that of beer. Shame.

  13. In the run up to general eletcion I saw some Kalulu teeth jumping up and down reciprocating like the tarpets of an old locamotive engine, conning us that they have brought soller milling which will reduce the price of mealie meal. So what happened to that ridle.

  14. Ba president, first of all explain to Zambians on why you privately sold our maize to Malawi and yet you are in the forefront of denying our poor farmers to sell their enslaved laboured maize produce to nearby countries. You have no farm neither is Dora but you sell Maize and pocket the money.

    Peter Wamutalika has brought shame on you and I do not see your wisdom in this.

  15. Nshima has really gotten to people’s minds. Our land can produce so many alternative and better crops to feed the whole population but our heads are stuck on Nshima. This beats me. Anyway am off to my Nshima lunch …

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