By JUDITH NAMUTOWE –

ZAMBIA Forest and Forestry Industry Corporation (ZAFFICO) has drastically reduced and standardised the monthly volumes of logs sawmillers are supposed to get due to increased number of dealers in the industry.
Each sawmiller is supposed to get 35 cubic metres of logs per month across the board.
This has, however, worried the Zambia National Association for Saw Millers (ZNAS) which says that the move will negatively impact on the operation of the members.
ZNAS assistant public relations secretary Rabson Lungu said in an interview that the forestry company reduced the number of volumes for pine from 85 and 55 to 35 cubic metres across the board.
He said no members were allowed to buy less or more than the stipulated 35 cubic metres of pine logs per month while the allocation for the logs was done on quarterly basis bringing the total volume of the product to 105 cubic metres.
ZAFFICO has embarking on this move to cater for the increased demand for logs as a result of more sawmillers having come on board.
Mr Lungu said the number of sawmillers has increased from the previous 548 to 1,300, hence ZAFFICO’s decision to limit the number of logs per sawmiller per month.
He said the move would, however, impact negatively on the performance of various members in that the outputs would be reduced, thereby reducing their incomes.
“We can only appeal to the forest company to consider increasing the plantation so that it can have increased number of trees to be harvested at a given time,” Mr Lungu said.
Mr Lungu urged the members to also participate in planting tree so as to have a broader base of suppliers.