We don’t have capacity to store maize for 3yrs – Nalumango
By Margaret Malenga
ZAMBIA today doesn’t have capacity to store maize even for two to three years so where did you store, Vice-President Mutale Nalumango has asked Shiwang’andu PF member of parliament Stephen Kampyongo.
During the Vice-President’s Question Time in parliament on Friday, Kampyongo asked Vice-President Nalumango if it was wise for the new dawn administration to sell all the maize reserves they found, which has resulted in the current food deficit.
“Your honour the Vice-President, do you still think it was wise for the two colleagues to deplete the maize stocks which they inherited by exporting the subsidised maize from our farmers when we didn’t know how the weather patterns were going to unfold? Madam Speaker, on the floor of this august House we lamented, we advised government, Your honour the Vice-President not to entertain the thought of exporting the maize stocks which were in storage for a period of about three years because of the partial drought that we had experienced in the past,” said Kampyongo. “We certainly agree with the President that indeed hunger can be biblical. But, your honour the Vice-President, we were assured by our colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture and [Ministry of] Commerce, [Trade and Industry] that we were food secure. And the challenges we are going through now could have been avoided if indeed this House performed its role of ensuring that people’s food security is guaranteed. We don’t even know where you are going to get grain to distribute under the Disaster Management [and Mitigation Unit].”
In her response, Vice-President Nalumango counter questioned Kampyongo where the maize he referred to was, arguing that Zambia does not have the capacity to store that much.
“… Number one, you have said ‘this government sold maize in stock’. I think that is the first point the honourable member made. You don’t call something yours when you have not paid for it. That is true, honourable members here this is honourable member that was once a minister knows that you speak from what you know. If the honourable knows something else, maybe you need to bring out that. What I know is that when we came in, Madam, there was maize that was never paid for and the farmers were complaining even through members of this august House. So how do you call that maize yours? You were storing other people’s maize and therefore this government which found no money in the coffers had no option,” Vice-President Nalumango explained. “Honourble member, this is on record as far as I am informed, that the maize that we had stored had not been paid for and there was therefore need to pay. We were not going to punish our peasant farmers without paying them so the sale was not out of being deliberate and not wanting to acquire money but because the farmers had not been paid. What else could we have done? That three years there was no, as far as I know, there was no maize stored which could have lasted for three years. That is true colleagues and you don’t even have the storage in the first place. This is reality. And that is why if you look at our resilience in terms of the drought response, we have had to put in an amount to be able to construct storage, warehouses. Zambia today doesn’t have capacity to store maize even for two-three years. So where did you store? This is reality colleagues. If you were not aware, find out. Now if we don’t have, where did we store the maize for three years? This is what I know. Any other information would be made available.”
She challenged Kampyongo to state where the maize reserves he referred to were since the country had no capacity.
Vice-President Nalumango said the government needed the wisdom of Joseph in the Bible who presided over a seven-year famine in Egypt and managed to provide sufficient food until it rained again.
“These people have hammers, Madam. I don’t have hammers to hammer people. I give them what I know as facts. If my facts are felt they are not truth, people can come and say this is exactly what we know. Tell us where this maize was sitting which was going to be for three years because as far as we know we have realised, in fact as the entire SADC, I can speak for SADC that we don’t have storage for so many years. It can be a crisis,” she said. “In case God gives us rain, which He will because He is faithful, and we grow, we must find space to store for enough time. Enough years so that when we have a situation like we do now at least there would be enough that we would have stored. We need the wisdom of Joseph here. Let us look at that.”
Vice-President Nalumango added that the government is working on finding enough resources to construct storage sheds to store maize grain for longer periods.
“So the issue that the minister said, we were food secure, colleagues like I said in the begging all things being equal, the way we plan every year; remember we always have what we keep aside as strategic plan which is normally 500,000 metric tonnes and that is what we do. We offload, we put new stock all the time so that we are prepared. But we have never prepared for another full year and up to now we are still eating. What are we eating? It is not the new maize – that means there was enough plan to have enough stock for this time,” explained Vice-President Nalumango. “By now we should be harvesting and we should be restocking, unfortunately the drought has come. So to say was it wise, for the moment, because we don’t have the wisdom of God who knows yesterday, today and forever. From what we knew, this was wisdom so that we can continue to have enough food for the people and stock. But we are working on finding enough resource to construct storage so that when we have food we can store for a little longer than just demands.”