NEWS of some unscrupulous business persons smuggling maize and mealie-meal to neighbouring countries has dominated headlines for the past weeks.
It is against this background that we strongly support the Government’s directive to restrict the movement of maize in order to avoid further artificial shortages being created by some members of the unwelcome cartel.
Members of this cartel, who want to destabilise the country both politically and economically, have been consistent in their clandestine activities to make Zambia ungovernable, thus inciting citizens to rise against the authorities.
They are behind the artificial mealie-meal shortages and issuing statements in the media, especially online publications, to alarm the nation that the country is in a crisis.
These people turned a deaf ear to the earlier directive by the chief Government spokesperson Chishimba Kambwili, who threatened that Government would blacklist and ban erring millers from participating in Food Reserve Agency (FRA) programmes for a period of two years.
The Government had good reasons to raise concern at the recent reports of millers and traders taking advantage of the subsidised maize from Government to exploit citizens by charging high prices.
The same people did not only charge high prices for the commodity, but thought of exporting some to neighbouring countries such as Mozambique, Malawi and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
All these illegitimate activities led to the artificial shortages and high prices of mealie-meal, creating an impression that the Government had failed to deliver.
It is against such acts of sabotage that the Government has said ‘enough is enough’ and has come up with a directive to restrict the movement of maize and mealie-meal to between 06:00 hours and 18:00 hours.
We feel other players should effect this directive by confiscating any maize or mealie-meal transported beyond 18:00 hours so that members of the cartel should realise that their honeymoon is over.
We are even suggesting that people who were behind the scam should not be let scot-free, but be brought to book so that they can serve as a lesson to others.
It is surprising to note that the members of the cartel are not happy that Zambia is food-secure, thus their mooting of a cheap political gimmick to create an artificial shortage of maize and mealie-meal.
Thus, we feel the restriction on the movement of maize and mealie-meal is not a measure that should be taken lightly since the sale of maize and its distribution is not a comical matter.
We are also hailing other measures, which include limiting of maize exports for pre-existing contracts to 227,245 tonnes if not supported by appropriate valid export documents, which should be availed to law-enforcement officers on demand.
In future, we are calling on the Government not to wait untill large tonnes of maize and mealie-meal are taken out of the country to act.
Instead, authorities should punish perpetrators for Zambians to realise that the country was food-secure unlike some of our neighbouring countries who want to extend their food insecurity to Zambia.
Members of this cartel know very well that Zambia has remained food-secure even amidst the current regional food deficit which has drastically affected some of our neighbours.
The enviable record has also seen 762,668 tonnes of maize being allocated to the millers for the domestic market and a further 174,532 metric tonnes available for the School Feeding Programme, Community Sales and Food Relief under the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit.
The available food stocks were sufficient to take the country to the next harvest season, an assurance that should make the citizenry remain calm.
Now that the favourite item of an artificial maize and mealie-meal shortage in the country has been removed, we wonder what the Kachepa radio would be broadcasting.