HICHILEMA IS EXCHANGING ZAMBIAN MILLING JOBS FOR SOUTH AFRICAN GMO MEALIE MEAL
Mr Hakainde Hichilema’s importation of GMO mealie meal from South Africa is tantamount to exporting our milling jobs to that country.
It would have been much wiser to import maize than the GMO mealie meal he is importing. We say this because importation of maize instead of mealie meal would keep our milling plants operating and our people in jobs.
And our transporters too would have more to transport – mealie meal, maize bran, and so on and so forth. Bran is a byproduct of flour or grits manufacture from maize grain. It consists principally of outer skins, some germ fragments, and endosperm particles.
Maize bran is an extremely valuable product. It is highly used in the production of stock feeds of all sorts. Our millers export a lot maize bran to Botswana. The transportation of maize bran to Botswana helps to keep our transporters in business and their drivers and other employees in employment.
And Zambians have for all years resisted GMO mealie meal. What has changed?
Mr Hichilema will be importing GMO mealie meal from South Africa for the next 10 months.
Clearly, this means that we don’t have enough maize stocks in the country. Yet they are still issuing licences to export mealie meal? What’s the logic?
At the rate Mr Hichilema is killing private sector jobs many of our people will die without ever seeing a pay slip. And at the rate the economy is further crumbling – if the inflation and exchange rates are anything to go by – most of our young people shall reach pensionable age without having been formally employed.
It is now clear by all standards that they’ve failed in their attempts to get the economy going again and improve the livelihoods of the people.
This is a failed government and it’s just a matter of time before it gets to a level where it will not be able to do anything about the economy and the hardships facing our people.
This country is in a free-fall!
Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party