MILLERS DENY COLLUDING WITH SMUGGLERS
…No reasonable miller would want to engage in mealie-meal smuggling considering the grave consequences that come with such illegal acts says Millers Association of Zambia president, Andrew Chintala
THE Millers Association of Zambia (MAZ) has distanced itself from allegations that some of its members are colluding with unscrupulous individuals to smuggle maize meant for local consumption into some neighbouring countries.
In an interview with Millennium TV, MAZ president Andrew Chintala said no reasonable miller would want to engage in mealie-meal smuggling considering the grave consequences that came with such illegal acts.
“We are working with state agencies to ensure that the smuggling is curbed and obviously there are measures that are in place and we have sufficient laws that should be applied to the perpetrators of this vice. Because you see what smuggling does is that it affects and disturbs the market, so it is something that obviously we should not pay a blind eye on because that will affect all these other interventions that Government is making with ourselves,” Mr Chintala said.
Mr. Chintala added that millers were aware of the consequences of mealie-meal smuggling which could result in them losing out on subsidised maize allocation from the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) under the government programme as well as getting blacklisted and slapped with a three-year ban from the maize purchasing exercise.“We have modalities in terms of the regulated export arrangement, which is in place so we would like to encourage those that would like to engage into exports to approach the millers and negotiate to see how best they can be supported to do it in a legal manner.
We do not support illegality and as such, we would like to make a call to our colleagues the state security wings that are responsible to ensure that they provide security and monitor the export arrangement that is in place,” Mr Chintala said.
He also said millers involved in such activities risked losing their mealie-meal in transit and forfeiture of the vessel used to transport the commodity.