Urgent PRESS STATEMENT
Zambia on AUTOPILOT, HH gov’t Mocks Zambian Individuals to Import Maize for their Personal Survival – Kasonde Mwenda C, EFF President
25th April 2024
It is both mockery and an admission of leadership failure for the government, through Minister of Agriculture Mtolo Phiri, to have circulated a memo on April 22, 2024, asking Zambians to import their own maize for survival. It is disheartening to hear that the Hakainde Hichilema government is shirking its responsibility of feeding the citizens and instead resorting to asking individual citizens to import maize from wherever for survival.
Secondly, as Economic Freedom Fighters-EFF, we demand an apology from FRA to the country for lying to the nation when they published a memo on April 1, 2024, responding to EFF President Mr. Kasonde Mwenda’s exposé of depleted Maize Reserves at Chisamba FRA Depot as dangerous and untrue, when in fact it was the FRA which was lying about having sufficient stocks. Through their own admission on April 23, 2024, where the Minister announced intentions to import 650,000 metric tons, it has now come to light that FRA was lying. They have run out of adequate reserves and are now rationing the little inadequate stock by selling a single 50kg bag at an exorbitant K330, as was disclosed by their Director Mr. Mwansa Chamatete on April 23, 2024.
We advise the UPND government to stop arm-twisting the FRA and muddying them with their corruption and lies. Let them leave FRA to work professionally.
It is the government’s duty to ensure food security for the nation. Although we are in dire circumstances such as experiencing drought, we expect the government to proactively engage grain-growing countries and enter bilateral government-to-government import agreements to import maize, which is the staple crop, to make up for the local maize grain deficit caused not only by the drought but also by the current government’s reckless decision to indiscriminately export and empty all the maize reserves stored by the Food Reserve Authority – FRA that had accrued between 2019 and 2021.
Under the Economic Freedom Fighters-EFF leadership, the Zambian government will implement measures to ensure food security so that no Zambian will be forced to import maize for survival. The EFF government will also establish backup reserves in each and every district to replenish stocks in case of turbulence.
Under the EFF government, winter farming to mitigate maize shortage will be realized by adequately equipping the citizenry with farming inputs and irrigation technology, unlike under the Hakainde Hichilema UPND government where it is just empty rhetoric.
Wherever we want to go, our feet will take us there.
Kasonde Mwenda C, Economic Freedom Fighters-EFF President
That is a fake memo.
Stop getting excited at every opportunity to criticise government. Job of opposition is to provide alternative solutions.