Government challenged to declare stock levels in country’s food reserves

Patriotic Front (PF) Shiwang’andu Constituency Member of Parliament, Stephen Kampyongo, has called on government to provide details of the country’s strategic food reserves.

Welcoming President Hakainde Hichilema’s declaration of drought as a disaster and an emergency, Kampyongo said the Minister of Agriculture, Mtolo Phiri, had an obligation to tell the nation whether what was in the reserves was enough to feed the 78 districts.

During a media briefing in Lusaka on Friday, the former Home Affairs and Internal Security Minister, also expressed sadness that the Head of State described the agriculture culture of Northern Zambia as poor.

He noted that such a statement was likely to lead to the Northern part to be left out of the measures government would implement to deal with the current drought.

“We have had catastrophes before, we had to deal with hunger in 2015, we dealt with Covid-19 so we have experience, we are ready to work with government. However, we cannot afford to apportioning the blame on them,” Kampyongo said.

The lawmaker stated that government was warned on the effects of climate change but ignored the advice and went on to sell the maize which it found in reserves.

He also challenged government to tell the nation where it would import the maize the President talked about to allay fears of importing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

“Even as they are going to import the maize, I want to advise that they should not import GMOs which have health implications on the citizens,” Kampyongo advised.

In the same vein, Kawambwa Member of Parliament, Nickson Chilangwa, called on the Speaker of the National Assembly to constitute a Committee to investigate the amount of maize stocks in the country.

“I want to call on the Speaker like she did before to provide leadership on this matter and constitute a Committee which will go around the country to check on the maize stocks and report back to her,” Chilangwa advised.

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