4 December 2008
THE Government has constituted a task force to study rising food prices and recommend possible solutions to the situation, Chief Government spokesperson, Ronnie Shikapwasha has said.
And Lieutenant-General Shikapwasha has dismissed calls to declare the current food situation a national disaster, saying that the conditions did not necessitate that.
He said during a Press briefing in Lusaka yesterday that the task force, which would be headed by Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister, Brian Chituwo, was expected to come up with a National Action Plan of necessary interventions.
"As Zambians may already be aware, it has been established that the country will run out of maize at the end of February 2009 and that there will be need to import the shortfall to last until May 2009 when we would rely on our own produce," he said.
Gen Shikapwasha said the Government was concerned about the situation, hence its decision to form the task force and allow the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) as well as private dealers to import the shortfall estimated at 100,000 tonnes.
Equally, he said, the Government was aware that the availability of maize or mealie meal was not itself the final solution because the commodity should ultimately be affordable to the people.
It was for this reason that the Government instructed the FRA to start offloading the maize held in its national reserve at the rate of 20,000 tonnes per month for the next four months so that it could help stabilise the price of the commodity.
"The Government is assured that with these measures, there will be not only enough maize in the country, but there will also be assurance of stable and affordable prices of the staple food.
"As for the people in the areas that experienced food shortages due to floods, the Government will continue to provide them with relief food as one of the main activities within the rehabilitation programme," he said.
So far, Gen Shikapwasha said, the Government has distributed 5,714 tonnes of white maize countrywide and out of that total, 3, 254 tonnes have gone to Southern Province.
Gen Shikapwasha said there was no need for the Government to declare the situation a national disaster because the situation was under control.
He said it was equally wrong for leaders like Patriotic Front (PF) president, Michael Sata to incite the people to protest against the high mealie meal prices while the Government was addressing the problem.
On the prices of fertiliser, he said Mr Sata should check the facts because the Government never announced that the prices of all the fertiliser had been reduced to K50,000 per 50 kg bag.
Meanwhile, Gen Shikapwasha said he still believed that the media could revisit the issue of regulating itself.
He said the practitioners should sit down and find a feasible way of regulating themselves to ensure fairness and protection of the people from subjective coverage.
Gen Shikapwasha had earlier in the day met public media heads in a closed-door meeting.
He later told journalists that as a new minister he had to familiarise himself with leaders of media houses under the ministry so that he could learn of their successes and challenges and start moving together.
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