The Food Reserve Agency, FRA, will only purchase 32,900 x 50 Kilogramme bags of maize out of the over 112,000 bags projected production for the district.
Acting District Agriculture Coordinator, DACO, Ng’onga Musonda, confirmed this at the District Development Coordinating Committee, DDCC, held at the council chambers yesterday.
Mr Musonda said the FRA has indicated that it will only purchase 32,900 bags of maize and that over 60 per cent of the commodity will not be bought as it is not budgeted for by the agency.
He was, however, quick to note that his office is trying to look for the market for the maize that the FRA will not purchase.
And Mr Musonda explained that efforts are being made to pursue the FRA on the possibility of increasing the amount of maize to be bought from farmers in the district.
And some members of the DDCC told ZANIS in a separate interview that the decision by the agency to reduce the amount of maize it is butying from farmers, would force most farmers to sell the grain to briefcase businessmen.
And Kawambwa district still has 11,435 bags of maize that was produced in the 2007/2008 farming season.
And more than Eight thousand empty grain bags belonging to the Food Reserve Agency, FRA, valued at K14 million are missing at Solwezi FRA Depot.
North Western Police Commanding Officer, Fabian Katiba, confirmed to ZANIS that a total 8,299 empty grain bags valued at K14.4 million have been reported missing from the FRA depot.
Mr Katiba disclosed that Police has, however, received reports of suspected FRA empty grain bags being sold at a local black market.
Mr Katiba said Police were holding three FRA employees to help with investigations.
The Police chief added that one bale containing 500 empty grain bags has since been recovered from one of the suspects.
Meanwhile, FRA authorities in Solwezi said they had noticed a presence of Beige FRA printed empty grain bags on the markets in Solwezi, and they suspect they were illegally taken from the warehouse.
FRA authorities have since requested for assistance in establishing the source of bags sold on the black market.