By A Correspondent- More subsidised roller meal will be in the shops once all millers start receiving the special maize allocations from the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) from Monday after a fruitful meeting between the Government and millers recently.

Shortages have been severe since only eight of the 61 millers had been receiving the special maize allocations for milling into roller meal but from next week all millers will be receiving the required special allocations from the Grain Marketing Board.

Millers met representatives from the Ministries of Industry and Commerce, Finance and Economic Development, the GMB and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra).

The meeting came after some millers expressed concern that they were excluded from the subsidised roller meal programme as they had not been registered.

After the meeting, both parties confirmed they had a fruitful discussion and expected things to start improving next week with the subsidised roller meal being made available in shops.

Secretary for Industry and Commerce Dr Mavis Sibanda said Government was working with millers to eliminate all problems preventing the availability of subsidised roller meal on the market.

“We are working together with millers. We are in the process of ensuring all millers are functional,” said Dr Sibanda. We had a cordial meeting with the millers. It was an important meeting to understand each other. Millers wanted to understand the subsidy process and we updated each other on the processes.

“As the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, we want all millers to survive.” 

 On the registration concerns, Dr Sibanda said all millers were registered with the GMB.

Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ) national chairman, Mr Tafadzwa Musarara, said there had been some changes to the subsidy programme, resulting in some millers experiencing challenges.

He said only eight millers had so far been registered for the subsidised roller meal programme.

-StateMedia