By Staff Reporter
Mwense Council chairman (UPND) Stephen Chikota has confiscated mealie meal bags from a local businessman in the district said to be involved in smuggling the commodity to Congo, and will follow that up by closing the businessman’s shop.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Chikota said people were complaining about mealie-meal shortages in the area, yet there were people who were smuggling the commodity out of the country. He said it puzzled him that mealie-meal was finishing quickly in Mwense shops despite the area being small, but when he conducted investigations, he discovered that there was what he described as a huge smuggling syndicate where the commodity was being smuggled into the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“The young girl who has been apprehended is the one who revealed that she got mealie-meal from this and that shop. And this is a small village where the consumption of mealie-meal is very limited, but mealie-meal finishes within hours. So what has happened is that we moved in, now we need to close the shop, we need to get all the bags of mealie-meal which are in the shop,” Chikota said. “There are about three shops stored with mealie-meal where they were getting the commodity from. And the bad side of it is where even this businessman is there, he’s even proudly saying there is nowhere this matter is going. There is the name Mutila, he’s very famous, they call him ka Lesa akanono (small god), but me I cannot see the president crying, the government always crying and then the system is corrupt.”
He said some have even formed a committee they were calling the Millers Association of Mwense which he said must be banned and that he had informed the provincial permanent secretary on the same. Chikota said the retail licences given to the millers must be suspended “today, not on Monday, and the shops must be locked until further notice.”
“So I am going to give you the video, we have captured the video and the clips,” Chikota said.
He said he received a call from “alert civilians” where 200 bags were being ferried into Congo in broad day light today.
“You know we have watched from a distance and if it was not for the involvement of the newly appointed district administrative officer Mr Muonga, even now they would be taking the mealie-meal. Now we have agreed because we share the same vision and the President’s vision, we can’t have a situation where people are complaining that mealie-meal has become expensive, then one man is making millions, selling to Congo when the system is in place,” said Chikota. “He has the license to sell mealie meal, retail licence for milling.”
