13 November 2008
THE Government is conducting a countrywide physical maize stock audit to ascertain the availability of the commodity, Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister, Ben Kapita has said.
Mr Kapita said in an interview in Lusaka yesterday that his officers were on the ground conducting a physical assessment of the situation and the Government would soon state the actual situation.
The Government on Tuesday said it would sanction maize imports and allow the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to offload maize on the market if millers did not stop hoarding maize and lower prices of mealie meal.
Before resorting to maize importation, Mr Kapita said, the Government wanted to know how much stock was in the country, hence the move to carry out the audit.
Industry sources said a maize deficit was looming after private traders who bought the bulk of the produce from farmers defied the Government's ban on maize exports and sold the produce abroad.
The situation was compounded by floods, which reduced the national production to 1.2 million tonnes in the 2007/2008 crop season from the previous season's 1.3 million tonnes.
The FRA bought about 80,000 tonnes of maize from farmers and left private sector players, including millers to mop up the rest of the produce.
Mr Kapita was reacting to an observation by Millers Association of Zambia (MAZ) chairman, Caleb Mulenga that the country had a national maize shortfall of between 100,000 and 200,000 tonnes.
Mr Mulenga said the current maize shortage was real and not artificial, and according to the association's projections, the country had a maize shortfall of between 100,000 and 200,000 tonnes.
Mr Mulenga said the association had told the government about the deficit but the Government stuck to its initial figures of about 143,000 tonnes surplus.
"We had challenged Government in one of our private discussions with them that our forecast showed a maize deficit of between 100,000 and 200,000 but they stuck to their figures which show a surplus," he said.
He admitted that some millers had enough maize to cater for a period of up to about February 2009, but others would run out.
Mr Mulenga also said the out of mill MAZ prices for a 25 kilogramme bag ranged between K40,000 and K44,000 for roller meal and between K50,000 and K52,000 for the same quantity of breakfast.
He said traders were recommended to add not more than K5,000 per bag within a radius of five kilometres and anyone found charging exorbitant prices would be blacklisted.
A check yesterday showed that the traders had maintained the high prices.
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