Continued unmitigated mealie-meal smuggling poses huge security risk for Zambia

By Daily Revelation Editor

With historically high mealie meal prices currently obtaining in the country, it is depressing to the many suffering Zambians to everyday hear news about truckloads currying tons of mealie-meal out of the country through smuggling.

And this is happening in full view and connivance of the people tasked with ensuring that smuggling is curbed in order to mitigate the prices of the staple commodity.

Recently we saw a video which went very viral of one senior police officer on the Copperbelt lambasting a newly recruited police officer who has made a living out of smuggling the mealie-meal, in connivance with his police colleagues and other members of society.

This country has reason to worry greatly if the people who are supposed to fight criminality have become hardcore criminals themselves.

We know that mealie-meal and maize are some of the most sought after commodities from neighboring countries right now and many are making a living out of selling the commodity at a very high price. However, maize and its by-product mealie-meal is a national security matter and if not well managed could pose a risk to this country, hence the need to ensure that the matter is handled with the urgency that it deserves.

Just recently, Eastern Province minister Peter Phiri said the smuggling of the commodity into neighboring Malawi had escalated the shortage of mealie meal in Eastern Province whereby a 25kg bag of the commodity was costing between K400 and K500 in Malawi and that people were making profits from such sales. However, Peter failed to mention any intervention measures the administration had put in place to curb the pilferage of the same commodity into Malawi.

Every day there are reports of such kind of pilferage being reported, of course this used to happen in the past but only now has it reached industrial scale. It will be wise to draw important lessons from the previous experiences to address this rampant activity which is threatening food security in the country. We are not really against exports of maize and mealie meal, but you don’t indiscriminately allow for the export of a commodity which is so critical to national security.

The ongoing rain season despite the fact that the rains started late, the rain itself has not been too good and it is not even guaranteed when it will end. Unless there are drastic improvements in terms of rainfall patterns, especially in the main maize producing areas, the country is likely to face more strain on the maize availability and subsequently the continued escalation in the mealie-meal prices.

In times such as this, the administration should learn from the important lessons in the Bible when Joseph who had been sold into slavery in Egypt urged the Pharaoh to save up on the maize stock during the time of plenty as there was going to be a famine in the future which would require the people to rely on the old savings, the old stock. It is therefore incumbent upon the government to ensure they do all they can to address the situation so that it does not get out of hand and then find ourselves having to rely on food from the same countries we are smuggling to, and risk doing so at an even higher cost.