MEALIE MEAL SAGA: THE POLITICAL ASSEGAI AIMED AT THE UPND GOVERNMENT

By now, most of us know that there are some parts of the country where mealie meal is fetching as high as over K400 per 25 kilogramme bag of the commodity. This is despite the Government’s initiative to bring down the price of the commodity by engaging the Zambia National Service (ZNS) to produce and supply at a cheaper price.

This was arrived after realizing how exploitative some milling companies wanted to become by taking advantage of the situation to impose prohibitive mealie meal prices on the consumers, using the high cost of production as an excuse.

We will not go into the nitty-gritties of the politics that were at play because we have consistently written about this subject time without number, having religiously followed this issue over the years to understand what has been going on.

So, when the story filtered through with videos that some parts of Eastern Proving had run out of the commodity with people queuing up to access the commodity which was not only in short supply but also fetched for a leg and an arm, we knew exactly what was going on.

We were not even surprised that a few days ago, the same situation was reported in Chililabombwe where almost a warehouse of cheaper ZNS mealie meal was being smuggled into Congo probably with the help of some unpatriotic police officers while people next door were not able to access the commodity or only doing so after paying through their noses thereby exacerbating the situation, but the biggest question we should be asking is; who are the people behind this?

How did the cheap mealie meal which citizens are supposed to get be smuggled into Congo? Where is our intelligence? Where are our border guards? Who is the person keeping such huge quantities of mealie meal for export outside the country against the Presidential directive not to? Why has there been this grave silence over the matter despite its seriousness?

Could it be that those who should talk are not doing so because they are involved? Who is that junior police officer who was called in the middle of the mealie meal kerfuffle in Chililabombwe to try and help the smugglers get off the hook of those who were baying for answers as to why the mealie meal was being smuggled into Congo?

Being a junior police officer who even had the luxury to laugh off the matter as he was being queried, who sent him and what is the motive? Is the UPND Government in control of certain affairs of this country or those they have entrusted with the responsibility are playing Nebuchardnezer next door with the enemy?

The truth of the matter is that ZNS has not failed to produce and meet the local demand. The National Service is capable and is doing so at the moment but its effort is being let down by politically-puffed up individuals who care less about the suffering of the majority as long as this paints the UPND Government in bad light.

It is very clear that there are elements within the system whose loyalty is not to this Government and therefore, their motivation to work is not birthed by the desire to serve the Zambians but the interest of those who have sent them. To them, whether the current Government is climbing mountains or cascading into the doldrums of the valleys over the problems to which they have contributed in creating, it is not a big deal and this is why we see excited young police officers playing along to the mischief.

From where we stand, that young police officer and many of his other friends on the Copperbelt who are playing dirty are not to blame. The main culprits are those appointees who have shifted their loyalty to their paymasters. Just like political cadres, junior police officers cannot execute unless they receive the command from their seniors.

The hyena courage exhibited by that young cop is not ordinary. The powers that be may decide to fire or transfer that cop but that does not solve anything because the people betraying the citizens are the senior officers whose command the young man may just have been obeying.

These political antics will continue and if these people who are betraying the trust of the President are not dealt with, things will continue escalating to levels unimaginable and if there are those who think these are just isolated and not coordinated happenings, they will have themselves to blame.

This is because these are coordinated series of events, targeting border areas where mealie meal can easily be sneaked out of the country under the cover of darkness. What complicates this matter is the fact that the same people we have deployed to watch over us are the ones who turn into wolves in the night to commit the mischief.

The smuggling of the mealie meal is well-coordinated. It is political and those who think this is mere hallucination must allow the status quo to continue and prove us wrong. We warned this Government about millers not long ago and the same thing we warned against is what happened not long before. In their bid to rectify the problem, they have hit another snag because the same people they trusted are now the ones planting thorns on their path.

How do you explain a situation where the same mealie meal produced by the same Service is fetching for K220 in Choma but people in Petauke are getting it at K400 yet the Service has partnered with Rainbow Milling in Chipata to bring down the cost of the product? Doesn’t this ring a bell in someone’s mind that the Umodzi Kumawa fanfare and mealie hegemony are interchangeably happening in Eastern Province?

What about the Chililabombwe smuggling fiasco and the fielding in of candidates by political parties such as the National Congress Party (NCP) in a by-election for the first time in their lives despite being PF stooges who could have been well-placed to do so under the PF regime and the consequent resignation of the same candidates and their withdrawal from the by-elections?

The problem we have in Zambia is that we do not stop politicking. The moment we are out of one election, we start positioning ourselves for the next election and these semantics will not stop until we get to 2026.

Whether we brutalize Zambians in the process or whether we starve them to death, is out of question as long as doing so will fancy one’s chances of forming the Government. Unfortunately, those in Government at times feel they are under control. We have seen successive Governments in the past taking the same route until it is late.

These artificial mealie meal shortages and purposeful heightened tension that have rocked some parts of the country are an assegai aimed at the UPND Government and if care is not taken, the throwers may have the last laugh.