By CHUSA SICHONE –
THE Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has so far constructed storage sheds with a total capacity of 101,000 tonnes out of the targeted 117,000 tonnes of grain for this year.
FRA executive director Chola Kafwabulula said in an interview that construction of the remaining storage sheds would be completed in two weeks’ time.
“We had said that we were going to construct 117,000 metric tonnes of storage space this year. As we are talking right now, 101,000 metric tonnes has already been constructed and it’s full of this year’s maize,” he said.
Mr Kafwabulula said the storage facilities had been constructed in Eastern, Muchinga, Northern, North-Western and Luapula provinces.
Mr Kafwabulula said it was the first time in the FRA’s history that the agency’s storage capacity was being increased from the current 700,000 tonnes, reiterating that the construction process was in line with the company’s aggressive 2014 to 2018 Strategic Investment Plan.
The Strategic Investment Plan is aimed at increasing the agency’s storage capacity from 700,000 tonnes to 2000,000 tonnes by the year 2018.
Mr Kafwabulula said also said the FRA was awaiting instructions from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock for it to resume buying maize from farmers after the agency reached its 500,000 tonnes target recently.
On last week’s surprise rainfall experienced in some parts of the country, Mr Kafwabulula said it did not damage maize at any FRA shed.
He said his aim was to ensure further reduction of crop wastage from a paltry one per cent last year to an even better result this year and that the agency was making frantic efforts to move all the maize purchased to safety before the onset of the rains.
Mr Kafwabulula was also happy that the measures that were put in place to prevent stealing of the crop were bearing fruit and disclosed that the security measures would further improve as the agency was planning to install CCTV cameras, among other security features, at its storage facilities countrywide.