Zambia government expects millers to emulate Chimanga Changa Milling Company which reduced mealie meal prices even before the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) lowered the price of maize, Times of Zambia reported on Saturday.
Agriculture and Co-operatives Minister, Brian Chituwo, said the government expected the millers to respond to the FRA decision to reduce the prices of maize to benefit consumers, according to the newspaper.
Chituwo said that the reduction in the price of maize was part of the government's commitment to ensure that mealie meal was made affordable and the government was waiting to the see the benefits trickle down to the people.
He said millers complained that they decided to increase the prices of mealie because of the costly maize but since the FRA has now reduced maize prices, it was fair that the millers responded to the reduction.
"There is no justification for millers to continue selling the commodity at exorbitant prices and we hope the millers will realize the importance of making the commodity affordable," the official was quoted by the newspaper.
"Since the millers will now be accessing the maize from FRA, there is no reason why they should not respond by reducing the prices of mealie meal as well since their concern was the cost of maize," he said.
The minister further said that the government, through the vice- president's Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU), had also intensified distribution of relief food to areas which have been hit by hunger.
He said as part of the long-term solution, the government was putting in place measures aimed at working with farmers to improve and increase production.
The government recently directed the FRA to offload 100,000 tons of maize on the market to reduce and stabilize mealie meal prices. Chimanga Changa Milling Company, which on Monday announced a reduction in the price of mealie meal, on Wednesday offloaded cheap mealie meal from its Ndola plant.
Chimanga Changa spokesman, Auswell Nyoni, said all the stocks released on the market were bought and the company had boosted production to ensure that it satisfied demand when sales resume this morning.
APG Milling chairman, George Konidaris, said in a separate interview in Lusaka that the reduction in the price of maize was welcome but urged the FRA to increase the monthly stocks it was offloading on the market.
Konidaris said the 20,000 tons that the FRA was releasing every month was not enough and needed to be increased to at least 50,000 tons for it to go round the millers and result in a mealie meal price reduction.
He said as long as maize from the FRA was available, the price would definitely go down.