Zambian Eye|As the nation continues to face critical shortages of mealie meal, it has come out that the government is not telling the citizens the truth about the grain situation in the country, reports Zambian Eye Correspondent.
According to the World Food Programme WFP, the drought conditions have resulted in significant crop losses and poor harvests in the last farming season. This has led to shortage of grain in the country, but this is contrary to the official version from the government.
Meanwhile the state is maintaining that the country has enough reserves, alleging that the shortages are artificial orchestrated by economic saboteurs.
However, the facts on the ground do not support the state’s version. The government has since come under fire from various sections of the society who are demanding to know the truth.
Commenting on the matter National Democratic Congress leader, Chisimba Kambwili, said the government had not been honest regarding the issue of mealie meal shortages; “From November when the price of mealie-meal started going up, we were made to believe that it was temporary and that the price will come down.
“All those in government, including the President, [Lusaka Province minister Bowman] Lusambo, Minister of Agriculture [Michael Katambo] have been issuing statements continually that the price of mealie-meal will come down but to the contrary what we are seeing is that the price of mealie-meal has continued to go up,”
According to humanitarian experts the government is dilly-dallying on the matter pretending that everything is fine, and not admitting the truth of the matter.
WFP states : “The Zambian Government has refused to declare hunger as a national disaster despite calls from the international community and opposition leaders.”
This refusal by the government to declare it a state of emergency has negative implications in that the international aid community may not chip in at the right time.
Warnings that Zambia is on the verge of hunger have been given countless times by different organizations and individuals, but the government is declining to admit.
Caritas warned that Zambia is facing one of its worst droughts in decades and that 2.3 million people are in urgent need of help.
Apparently, Minister in the Office of the Vice President Olipa Phiri recently confessed that about 2.3 million people have been affected by the drought that dogged the country last year.
The minister said this during a visit to the Copperbelt recently where donations from well wishers meant for the flood affected victims were being handed out.
Assorted food items worth K1.1 million were donated to the vulnerable people of Kabushi Constituency by the Kabushi Entrepreneurship and Vocational Training Centre (KEVTC) in collaboration with the Disaster Management Mitigation Unit (DMMU).
On the same note, in May 2019, the Minister of Agriculture Micheal Katambo, said the country had enough maize stocks for both human consumption and industrial supplies. But, few days later he back tracked and confessed to a local radio station that the country was facing maize shortages.
In November the same year, President Edgar Lungu also confessed that the agriculture sector had been negatively affected by climate change effects, drought, floods, and outbreaks of pests and diseases. He admitted that as a result the production of crops, in particular Zambia’s staple crop maize declined. -Zambian Eye