Millers to sell maize meal at K130

MILLERS

who are accessing subsidised maize from the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) will start selling mealie meal at K130 for a 25Kg of breakfast, Millers Association of Zambia (MAZ) president Andrew Chintala has said.

Mr Chintala said the association, FRA and the grain traders signed an agreement for millers accessing subsidised maize to sale mealie meal at K130.

He said in an interview that traders accessing mealie meal from the milling companies were not supposed to add more than K10 per bag depending on the distance involved in accessing the commodity.

Mr Chintala said those who were distributing within the town where the mealie meal was being produced were not supposed to add more than K6.

He said the impact of the reduction would be felt once more millers signed the agreement by the end of the week or next week.

Mr Chintala, however, emphasised that the association did not have powers to control the mark-up price of individual traders at markets but that the agreement demanded for a an addition of not more than K10 and a factory price of K130.

“I can talk about the factory price but you know if you pick the mealie meal as a trader and you are selling it at Kabwata or Chilenje market, you will put what price as your mark-up and we have absolutely no control of that but I can assure you that what we agreed is K130 at factory,” he said.

Mr Chintala said the response from millers was overwhelming as more where signing the agreement.