. Chanda

By DELPHINE ZULU  –
PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu has directed the Zambia Cooperative Federation (ZCF) to work with the Zambia National Service (ZNS) to expedite the installation of solar milling plants to supply the entire country with cheap mealie-meal.
President Lungu expressed sadness at the continued increase of mealie-meal prices by retailers despite the country having enough stocks to last until the next marketing season.
Mr Lungu clarified that the artificial mealie-meal shortage was being caused by panic-buying due to continued lies by the opposition that Zambia had completely run out of maize.
Special Assistant for Press and Public Relations Amos Chanda said yesterday that Mr Lungu was not happy that citizens were being subjected to buying expensive mealie-meal due to some propaganda being spread by the opposition that there wasn’t enough maize in Zambia.
He said reports being peddled that all the maize had been exported leading to Zambia importing maize at a higher price, were not correct because the Government had not imported any maize.
The President assured the nation that they would see a reduction in the price of mealie-meal soon.
“The President is not a happy man because the opposition is busy spreading lies that the Government has exported all the maize and was now importing it at a higher price. The truth is that all is in place and any negative aspect to this effect is being addressed,” Mr Chanda said.
He said measures would be put in place to curb rampant smuggling which would yield positive results to normalise the artificial shortage.
Mr Chanda said the President always planned ahead and had already put in place three measures to mitigate any situation that might arise.
In the first step, the President had directed the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to mop up all the grain from the fields held by the private sector which is approximately 260,000 tonnes.
The second measure is a directive to the ministry of Agriculture to work with other stakeholders like Zesco and ZCF in order to ensure that the irrigation farming system works without any disturbances to ensure a smooth flow of maize throughout the year.
Mr Chanda said the last option was to import maize from South America.
He said the last plan was unknown to other politicians other than the President, saying those claiming that the Government had started importing maize were misleading the nation.
“There is no way the President can jump his plans since he has put in place three steps. We have even started implementing the first one because the survey report is not yet out. This is what will guide him, meaning he cannot import before plans one and two are done,” he said.