Agriculture Minister Dora Siliya has maintained that government will not allow the export of maize to other countries to enable the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to meet the maize purchase target of 500,000 metric tons.
The FRA failed to meet the maize purchase target at the close of the maize marketing season on 31st October, 2016.
Ms Siliya says in order for FRA to meet the target, there is need for farmers, grain traders and other stakeholders to offload their maize to the agency.
Ms Siliya says this is the more reason why government will not allow for the export of the maize so that stakeholders sale their maize to the agency in order to meet the required 500, 000 metric tons target.
Meanwhile, the National Union of Small Scale Farmers of Zambia (NUSFZ) has attributed the failure by the Food Reserve Agency to meet the maize purchase target to the low maize floor price the agency was offering to farmers compared to what private buyers were offering.
NUSFZ Executive Director Dr. Frank Kayula says it was clear from the onset that the farmers were not happy with the maize floor price government had set.
Useless siliya who has no clue what she is doing. Can you give us your plans and ways in which you will ensure that you achieve your goal? how does it help us when you just tell us how you want things to be without tellig us how you will ensure that things are the way they should be? You pf chaps are the dumbest chaps to ever walk the earth. Lungu is really a pathetic visionless rat.
Don’t trust PF to tell the truth. They will still award their supporters or themselves export permits so that they make superprofits from the sweat of the peasants. These PFieves!
how much are you offering? they can’t offload maize below what is it costed to bring it to its current position and condition + 20% mark up.It will not cost the agency less than K180 per bag.
Fire the corrupt CEO at FRA he has never grown a cob of maize in his life he is a lawyer who thinks only about two things, women and stealing so please Minister cleanse FRA and you wont have to start issuing bans they will meet their target without flinching. Please do not be conned by the physical challenge he exhibits its behind that facade that his evil schemes are plotted…..
I thought Lungu recently authorised thousands of metric tonnes for sell to Malawi? If we don’t have enough in the reserves should we be exporting, even if its through govt. to govt. arrangements? Or am I missing something here? Dora also stated a couple of days ago that her ‘work as Minister of Agriculture is cut out’. Meaning essentially that she doesn’t know much and has to ‘learn’ on the job. Its a right mess as usual. From wrong appointments to no policy or plan.
NOW THE PF LIES AND LUBINDAS LIES ARE CATCHING UP WITH THEM – EVERYONE TOLD YOU THAT THERE IS NO BUMPER HARVEST BUT YOU DID NOT LISTEN INSTEAD THE GOVERNMENT CONTINUED EXPORTING MAIZE TO ZIMBABWE AND MALAWI. WE TOLD YOU TO STOP BECAUSE THE ZAMBIAN PEOPLE WILL STARVE – YOU DID NOT LISTEN.