By HELEN ZULU –
THE Government has constituted a committee to evaluate mealie-meal prices obtaining in the country following the offloading of subsidised maize to millers by the Food Reserve Agency (FRA).
Agriculture Deputy Minister Maxas Ng’onga said the Government had constituted a committee to assess mealie-meal prices in Zambia.
Mr Ng’onga said in an interview in Lusaka that the committee was conducting a study to ascertain the state of mealie-meal prices in the country and the report would be ready today.
“FRA has started offloading maize to the millers and they have received overwhelming response in terms of demand from the millers who want to buy the commodity.
“In view of this Government has constituted a committee that is looking into the state of mealie meal prices now that FRA has started offloading maize to the millers, and the report will be ready on Monday (today),” he said.
A check in most selling outlets in Lusaka at the weekend indicated that prices of mealie meal had remained unchanged despite the Government’s intervention to stabilise the price of the staple food.
Traders were selling a 25 kilogramme bag of roller meal at K71 and breakfast at K85 instead of K55 and K70, respectively.
At Mtendere Market, a 25 kilogramme of Simba and Star Milling bags of mealie meal were going for K85 and K71 for breakfast and roller meal, respectively.
At Pick ‘n’ Pay East Park Mall, a 25 kilogramme bag of Star breakfast meal was pegged at K73 while Simba Milling and National Milling was at K77 and K75, respectively.
At Kamanga Market in Lusaka, a 25 kilogramme bag of Pembe breakfast meal was fetching K85 while that from National Milling was pegged at K80.
At Shoprite Matero branch, a 25 kilogramme breakfast meal of Pembe and National Milling was fetching at K74.99 while a 25 kilogramme bag roller meal was K56.49.
Recently, Minister of Agriculture Given Lubinda told Parliament that FRA would enter into legally-binding but voluntary contracts with some private millers and avail them maize grain at K85 per 50 kilogramme bags instead of K120 as sold by the private sector.
The measure was supposed to see a 25kg bag of breakfast mealie meal pegged at less than K70 and roller at less than K55.