By Mubanga Mubanga
People in Lundazi are selling maize and mealie meal to the neighboring country and that is causing a mealie meal shortage in the district, Ministry of Agriculture permanent secretary Green Mbozi has said.
And Lundazi Member of Parliament Brenda Nyirenda says people are flocking to her residence crying and asking for food as the situation is dire, saying relief maize is needed to be distributed to them.
Speaking in an interview with Daily Revelation, on the reported shortage of mealie meal in some parts of Eastern Province among them Lundazi, Mbozi explained that the shortage being experienced in Lundazi is being caused by residents.
He said the same people the area Member of Parliament was saying had no mealie meal and were flocking to her residence, were carrying mealie meal on bicycles into the neighboring country.
“Lundazi itself has mealie meal but which they are ferrying to the neighboring country. People are seen riding bicycles. There is no physical boundary there, so people are moving from our territory into a foreign territory taking the food, the mealie meal which they should have been eating. They are selling there and you see, it’s going for as… even maize itself, not just mealie meal, they are selling maize at K450 into Malawi, mealie meal also is being sold there,” Mbozi said.
He said the government wanted to keep the little that is available for the Zambian population.
Mbozi said in the near future, the government may consider exporting mealie meal and maize into Malawi but given what happened in the recent past, the country does not have enough commodity to feed two countries.
“The little we have, we want to keep it for our population here for now, and maybe in the near future we should be able to export. I mean that’s a market for us but given what happened in the recent past, we don’t have much maize which we can use to feed two countries,” Mbozi said. “So for now, we are conscious we can only feed our population.”
Mbozi said the government expected leaders such as members of Parliament to help keep the available food within the Zambian borders so that the affected people don’t die of hunger yet the country has something to live on.
“That’s the unfortunate thing really. People are selling of course I know it’s a business opportunity but I think that they should be mindful of the fact that this business opportunity will end up endangering a lot of people because that is food, we have sent the mealie meal to them…you may also be aware that in Eastern Provinces, we had the lowest purchases of maize and yet Eastern Province… is actually number two to Central Province in terms of production. FRA only bought 17,000 metric tonnes. That being the case, it doesn’t mean that these people are free to do what they want to do,” Mbozi said.
He said there was enough to feed the population of Eastern Province but some people had taken advantage and were selling the maize and mealie meal into Malawi.
The permanent secretary has appealed to those selling the commodity to be mindful that trading the maize and mealie will create a hunger situation in the country.
“We have enough mealie meal to feed the population of Eastern Province but some people have taken advantage and they are selling this to neighboring countries and we just want to appeal to them to be mindful of the fact that for now, until the next harvest season, I think we need to be very careful on how we are doing trade so that we don’t endanger the food security of the people in these border areas from which our citizens are allowing foreigners, or are selling to foreigners,” said Mbozi.
But Lundazi Member of Parliament Nyirenda said local traders were buying mealie meal from Chipata, describing the situation as very dire and even at her home there were people going there crying and asking for food.
“So what we need is relief maize to be distributed to our people because the situation is not good at all,” Nyirenda said.
Asked what she had done to address the shortage of mealie meal in her constituency, Nyirenda explained that she had contacted the Eastern Province minister over the matter.
She said the government had also started stopping trucks coming from Chipata because they are seeing rampant smuggling of mealie meal into Malawi.
“So I have engaged the minister of Eastern Province and I have also engaged the minister of Agriculture. In actual fact, the challenge is not out of…because they are taking mealie meal to Malawi, but because there is no mealie meal in Lundazi. That is why the prices are going even higher. In Chama right now they are even buying at K600 which means the problem is big and requires concerted efforts,” said Nyirenda.
