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Millers have reportedly not supplied or delivered mealie meal in Eastern Province for over two months, causing the shortage of the commodity in that area and other parts of Zambia.
This followed the alleged regulations which had been put in place by government to restrict millers from supplying mealie meal into Eastern Province claiming that consumers were buying in bulk while taking it across the border post.
This is according to the Millers Association of Zambia (MAZ) president, Andrew Chintala, in an interview with journalists on Saturday.
Chintala, in his reaction to reports that mealie meal prices per 50 kilogramme of mealie meal is currently fetching above K400 in Eastern Province and Chililbombwe, blamed government for causing the shortage.
He described the shortage as artificial while explaining that government regulations had led millers from Lusaka not to supply the commodity to those areas.
“There has been a system that government introduced through a committee that has been tasked to take care of issues to do with smuggling. About seven months or so, there is a regulation that was introduced by government to regulate the delivery or supply of mealie meal into the Eastern circuit.
“Now I am actually very sad that we have not been able to deliver mealie meal into the Eastern Province. Yes, we are mindful of the border town as a concern, but look, is Petauke and Luangwa a border town? So, the shortage in Eastern province, Chililbombwe and Chingola have purely been caused by administrative systems of procedures,” he said.
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