Are ZCF-run solar milling plants still viable?
Published On February 9, 2023 » 861 Views» By Times Reporter » Features
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NOT until the Government intervened by offloading several tonnes of maize to millers, Zambians who truly love nshima as their staple food have been lamenting the skyrocketing prices of mealie meal.
In some places the prices of the staple food have been ranging between K180 and K220 for a 25 kilogramme (kg) bag of breakfast mealie-meal.
However, some private millers have reduced the price of the commodity with some brands fetching between K150 and K180 depending on the region.
A named private milling firm is in fact selling a 25 kg breakfast at K168 at its Mansa outlet.
In 2015, the Patriotic Front (PF) Government obtained US$200 million from China to buy solar hammer mills to grind maize into mealie -meal.
This was envisaged in an effort to bypass private millers and make the commodity affordable across all the 10 provinces of the country.
As stated earlier, the solar hammer mills, almost 2000 of them, were acquired at a cost of $200 million to be installed in all the 10 provinces.
This translates into having solar powered hammer mills in all the 116 districts.
Before Government intervened to flood the local millers with cheaper maize, on their part, the Millers Association of Zambia through their president Andrew Chintala had been attributing the high prices of mealie- meal to among others to the Zesco load management and the cost of transportation of the product.
However, recently, the Government intervened through the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) by offloading more than 200,000 tonnes of maize to 60 millers, selling it at K4, 000 per tonnes.
With these measures, stakeholders are also looking at Zambia Cooperative Federation (ZCF), which in 2015, was tasked to run the solar hammer mills to cushion the impact of mealie-meal by flooding the market with the staple food at an affordable price.
This is because some schools of thought feel that the solar powered hammer mills are just a white elephant in most regions where they are found.
For instance, nearly half of the 300 ZCF solar-powered milling plants in Eastern Province have reportedly stopped working.
Various sources tell this column that several of the milling plants have been abandoned by cooperatives with at least 30 percent of them having had their solar panels stolen.
In addition, concerns about the massive loan and its much-feared payback arrangements have been a thorny issue since the start of the project.
Those familiar with operations of the state owned facilities say, the solar hammer mills came without proper batteries, so the problem which has been there is that, when the locals trek to the plants to grind their maize, it takes hours for the hammer mills to finish one bag.
In some instances, it is alleged that in a day, the solar hammer mills can only manage maybe three or five bags because solar power is not enough for them to work effectively.
But while acknowledging the challenges besetting the project, the ZCF says its community-run solar milling plants dotted across the country were charging less than K10 to mill a 50kg bag of maize into mealie- meal and this should add to further bring down the price of the commodity.
ZCF further confirmed the completion of the multi- million solar milling plant projects across the country, achieving an over 80 percent target.
According to ZCF, out of more than 1, 500 solar hammer mills installed, over 60 percent of the plants were ‘operational’.
ZCF business development and projects manager Godfrey Munyoro says the country had more than 1,500 solar milling plants that could have had a positive impact on the economy once ‘effectively’ revived.
Mr Munyoro noted that the milling plants had the potential to run commercial production of mealie-meal, amidst unstable prices and could also supply power to nearby households.
The ZCF had, in 2015, set out to install 2,000 solar mini-milling plants in various rural districts of the country under the Presidential milling plant initiative.
This initiative was aimed at providing an alternative milling option at affordable prices to cushion seasonal escalating mealie- meal prices from private millers.
ZCF says slightly less than 2,000 solar powered hammer mills have been installed across the country out of the initial 2,000.
The Federation says the adjustments were made to accommodate and include more service and training centres built in North- Western, Western and Northern Province.
Others include centres initially set to be built for Lusaka Province, Serenje in Central, Chipata in Eastern Province, Kalulushi in Copperbelt and Choma in Southern Province.

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