The Times of Zambia (Ndola)
9 July 2009
THE Government will this week release K20 billion to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) for buying maize for this year's crop marketing season.
Finance and National Planning Minister, Situmbeko Musokotwane said the Government was committed to seeing to it that the money was released to enable the FRA continue with the crop purchasing exercise.
"We will be releasing the K20 billion before the end of the week to allow the agency continue with their purchase of maize, and we want to see this to be a success," he said in an interview.
He said the Government would continue to release the money in installments until the agency bought the planned 120,000 tonnes of maize from small-scale farmers.
He urged the farmers to take advantage of the announced K65,000 maize floor price and sell their produce to the agency.
Recently, the FRA announced the maize floor price which has been pegged at K65,000 for a 50kg bag and K60,000 for 40kg bag rice.
Since the start of the exercise, there have been complaints from farmers that the FRA was not buying the produce but the agency said marketing had been delayed by high moisture content.
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