Maize smuggling worries Lusambo

By KALOBWE BWALYALUSAKA Province Minster Bowman Lusambo has expressed concern how trucks loaded with bags of maize were being smuggled into the neighboring Zimbabwe, despite the road being mounted with roadblocks.Mr Lusambo has since directed Kafue district commissioner Gibson Sinkala together with his counterpart in Chirundu, Stafford Kayame to immediately institute patrols between the two districts in order to prevent smuggling of maize.Mr Lusambo said as long as he remained the provincial minister, he would not tolerate any lawlessness in the province and he would ensure that any culprit behind the act was brought to book.Mr Lusambo said a few days ago trucks loaded with maize destined for Zimbabwe were impounded, and wondered how the trucks managed to be cleared on police roadblocks.The Lusaka minister has since challenged the security wings in the province to ensure that maize smuggling is prevented.He said this in Kafue yesterday when he flagged off the 2020/2021 farming input fertilizer distribution at Nitrogen Chemical of Zambia (NCZ).And the minster however said the reason for distributing inputs early, was to give the farmers enough time to plan for the coming farming season.He also promised NCZ that, he would engage President Edgar Lungu through the Minister of Agriculture Michael Katambo so that the company is given more tonnage of fertilizer to be produced for the next year’s farming season because Government valued the contribution of farmers towards national food security.Meanwhile, NCZ Board Chairperson Dr Chitundu Kasase said the company had capacity to produce 250, 000 metric tons of fertilizer per annum.Dr Kasase disclosed that NCZ managed to produce the 10, 000 metric tons of fertilizer it was given by government towards FISP programme months back.