Government has offloaded affordable mealie meal on the market through the Zambia Correctional Service(ZCS) owned Kalonga Milling Plant in Kabwe.

Flagging-off the sales and distribution this morning, Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security Jack Mwiimbu said that Government is in a hurry to stabilize prices of essential commodities.

The Minister also revealed that ZCS has since signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to procure 20,000 metric tones of maize as feedstock at Kalonga Milling.

“You may wish to note that despite offloading maize to Millers, some unscrupulous Millers have deliberately and indiscriminately been selling the commodity at exorbitant prices,” he said.

Mr. Mwiimbu has since revealed that the move is in tandem with the New Dawn Administration to have a country that can expand the economy through agricultural production and value addition.

Meanwhile, ZCS Commissioner General Fredrick Chilukutu, has called on the local youths to organize themselves into cooperatives so that they could become sales agents for the Kalonga Milling Plant.

He said that ZCS will produce 2,592 by 25kg bags of mealie meal per day. “The plant will mill 2,000 metric tons per month and produce 64,800 by 25kg bags of mealie meal to serve the general public.” Mr Chilukutu said.

The Commissioner General has since appealed to the Central government to speed up the provision of funds for the purchase of the ZAMBEEF Chiawa farm to enhance agricultural production thereby providing feedstock to the Milling plants.

Kalonga Milling has since started sales of its branded mealie meal at K150 for Breakfast and K120 for Roller meal with depots at Kabwe Civic center and Kabwe New Market.