The United Party for National Development UPND Solwezi East Member of Parliament says residents of Mushindamo including himself are surviving on Kandolo (sweet potatoes) as they are unable to access the country’s staple food.
UPND MP Dr Alex Katakwe said life has become unbearable for the people in Mushindamo District of North-Western Province of Zambia, as they are unable to access mealie meal due to commodity shortage in the District adding that the situation on the ground has become very bad on the ground.
He told the Zambian Business Times in an interview that, “There is no mealie meal here as we speak because there has been some strict measures by the Zambia National service ZNS when it comes to transportation of mealie meal in the District and People who go to buy the commodity from Solwezi by the time they reach the ZNS check point the commodity is either confiscated or urged to get it back to Solwezi.” He said added that some people when they reach the check point they go through the bush just in order to survive and that is why I thought the only solution is to engage the ZNS.
He added that, “People have been crying to me their area Member of Parliament saying that they voted for change and that they are not seeing anything tangible happening and I have been engaging the Permanent secretary, minister of agriculture and ZNS to see how best we can have the commodity in the shortest period of time.” Can you imagine I have also failed to buy mealie for the time I have been here and we have been eating Kandolo and ifilashi because there is no mealie meal and there is no shop in Mushindamo today where you can find mealie meal.
He attributed this to unrestricted exporting of the commodity before Government announced the ban and the strict measures that have now been put by the Zambia National service to curb the commodity crisis in the country.
Before the restriction of export of mealie meal into DRC, the bag of mealie meal here was going between k250 and k280 although the road was too bad such that only one truck would manage to deliver within one month.
The mealie meal was costing about k250 and k280 on the Zambian side but our colleagues from the DRC they would buy in bulky and those who do not have shops at the border they would just take in trucks and off load on the trucks from DRC.
Because we do not have many locals with shops at the boarder where they can use them as outlets with genuine papers, many would be subjected to do illegal kind of business without papers where they just offload mealie meal to the DRC trucks who stock it in their country and then the Zambian people begin to buy again the commodity when there is a shortage and that is why the commodity price was high when it was available.
Not only that but sometimes the Congolese would come and sell the mealie on the Zambia soil and determine the cost which has been actually very unfair and to that effect I have been calling the councils to up their game when it comes to regulating the prices at the border as the Congolese would come and sell using their currency which to me I feel we have been a little bit week on the Zambian side.
Asked on the short term measures being put in place to resolve the situation, Dr Katakwe said, “There was some recommendation that we ask the ministry through cabinet that we ask some big local shops that has got trading mealie meal license to be given the right to procure and stock the commodity and sell at the correct and affordable price for the sake of the people of Mushindamo.”
So we are hoping as we meet the ZNS we engage them so that they can do the verification of the shops and hopefully by next week we need to see some mealie meal being offloaded in those particular shops with strict monitoring to ensure that the commodity is not smuggled to DRC.
