EVERY DAY FOR THE THIEF, ONE DAY FOR THE OWNER: THE CASE OF MILLERS

NOT long ago, we warned the millers that their manipulative antics over the cost of mealie meal was not only retrogressive, but would boomerang right on their faces if they continued with their adamancy but others never took us seriously.

We categorically stated that we appreciated the fundamentals that were pushing the price of the commodity high almost every day but we never ruled out the millers’ usual arm-twisting antics on the Government where they would purposefully create an artificial shortage of the commodity on the market and then allow the forces of supply and demand to work themselves to determine the equilibrium price. This was enough to push the commodity price higher and higher.

Previously, the Government would buckle under pressure and be pushed to dialogue with the millers in a bid to reduce the price of mealie meal on the market and this presented an opportunity for some greedy millers to push for cheap maize from the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) with the promise to reduce the price of mealie meal.

However, from an economic perspective, this achieved no objective towards reducing the commodity price other than making these millers richer because the reduction on the price for mealie meal all the time would never be commensurate with the price at which they would get the maize, even when one factored in associated costs of production. They would literally get the maize from the Government for a song.

Even this year, millers would have gone the same route had the Government not put its foot down by refusing to give them cheap maize from FRA and instead give it to the Zambia National Service (ZNS) to mill and sell the commodity at fixed prices. Once this was done, the millers then looked to the outside market. They have been doing this all these years and they thought it would work again this time around but they goofed again.

The decision by the Government to enforce an export ban on the commodity to other countries and consequently tightening security at our border posts to ensure that no bag of mealie meal leaves the country hit them hard. They realised that they were not going to have it easy now that most parts of the country had the ZNS mealie meal which was cheaper than their exaggerated prices.

Under normal circumstances, had they managed to push for cheaper maize from FRA, this was the period millers were going to make a fortune for themselves as they were going to make huge profits from mealie meal and to hear Millers Association of Zambia (MAZ) president Andrew Chintala saying millers have lost business because of the decline in demand for mealie meal on the domestic market, is shocking.

His further claim that the development was expected at this time of the year as there was a general reduction in the consumption for the commodity is another lie that has no empirical evidence and not backed by facts.

There is no Zambian home where a family cannot have nshima on a given day. That is a lie. As things stand, there is no alternative to nshima for a Zambian and the truth of the matter is that consumption has not gone down. Zambians still consume nshima daily. The only difference now is that they have a cheaper source of mealie meal which is ZNS.

The truth is that other millers who were purposefully increasing prices of mealie meal by exaggerating the cost of production have realised that they can no longer manipulate the Government with their usual lies. To further allege that most Zambians are consuming mealie meal from their maize which they are grinding for themselves is another lie. How many Zambians grow maize and produce their own mealie meal that such a development can trigger such a huge decline in demand?

Chintala should just admit that their business has been hampered by ZNS’ cheaper mealie meal and not that Zambians have reduced the demand for mealie meal from millers. If Zambians have reduced consumption of nshima, then what are they eating? We only hope that from this episode, millers have learnt something. Millers have for a long time taken their consumers for granted to make exaggerated profits whenever the country does not produce enough maize.

We hope the Government’s intervention is not a once-off undertaking. If we are to further reduce the price of mealie meal in the long-run, the ZNS route has proved to be a more efficient and effective alternative.

We believe that by bringing in the Zambia Correctional Service to partner with ZNS where the earlier produces more maize and the later mills the commodity, the price of mealie meal would reduce further. What is needed now is to build the capacity of these institutions by making more land available for the Zambia Correctional Service to produce more maize even under irrigation so that they do not have to worry about the rainfall pattern and procuring more milling equipment for ZNS to boost its productivity.

An export ban must be in effect so that no maize or mealie meal goes out of the country until we are certain that the volumes we have locally are enough to meet the local demand. That way, the millers will sit down and realise that these cartels they are using to milk Zambians serve no purpose towards the development of this country.

We are alive to the fact that maize and mealie meal are extremely political commodities which if not properly handled may lead to prices spiralling out of control even where there is no cause and in controlling the situation, magnanimity is always important. We, as a country, should at no time allow a few individuals to hold us to ransom for whatever reason. On issues that border on national development, we must never allow politics to turn us against each other.

Let those millers who have held us hostage for a long time learn to be patriotic for once. Let them realise that their cartel will only succeed in kicking them out of business if they continue arm-twisting the Government. Once again, kudos to the Government for this bold step!