Private millers can end mealie meal queues, stabilise prices - Imboela
THE Zambia National Service (ZNS) Eagle mealie meal project shall remain a scandal and those involved and benefitting from it shall account when the right time comes because Zambians have been subjected to untold misery and suffering of stampeding and queuing for the staple food, Saboi Imboela has said.
Ms Imboela, the National Democratic Congress president says she was disheartened to see people in Choma, Livingstone, Chirundu and Siavonga queuing and scrambling for the Eagle mealie meal, which was in fact not cheaper at all.
Ms Imboela said in an interview that unless the UPND government began to listen to advice that private millers should be engaged to help stablise the availability and price of mealie meal, there was a danger that Zambians could easily rise because they were being stressed.
She wondered what could have happened that Zambians should start lining up for mealie meal and in some instances being told to produce their identity cards to buy their staple food.
“The challenge we have with the ZNS Eagle mealie meal is that we do not know how safe it is to consume after Government announced that the defence wing was importing GMO mealie meal from South Africa on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
We have said time and again that the ZNS Eagle mealie meal project is a scandal, shall remain a scandal and those involved shall be made to account someday,” Ms Imboela said.
“This shortage of mealie meal the country has been subjected to could have been resolved had the UPND government not politicised the mealie meal sector.
We had advised that private millers should be engaged but as usual our advice was ignored because we are dealing with a group of people with the attitude of we-know-it-all,” she said.
She stated that it was a no brainer that ZNS had no capacity to produce and feed the entire country and that had government cared, it would have involved Zambia’s traditional private millers who had worked with all successive government until the UPND came in.