HH says UPND will slash prices of mealie meal by more than 50%
By Staff Reporter
OPPOSITION UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema says his party will reduce the price of a 25kg bag of mealie meal to as low as K50 when it forms government.
Hichilema, in a statement posted on his Facebook page yesterday said there was need for urgent measures to address the escalating prices of mealie meal, cooking oil and other essential commodities.
“The current prices are way out of hand and completely unaffordable by the majority of our citizens, especially with the current high rate of unemployment in the country,” Hichilema said.
The UPND leader said blaming adverse weather conditions is merely a convenient way of avoiding the problem.
“There are countries that are deserts, but their citizens are far much better in terms of living conditions because they rightly invested in correct projects. For example, we have been talking about creating more water harvesting mechanisms such as dams, canals, boreholes, etc to make farming an all year round activity, than waiting for rains.” he said.
Hichilema said that farming and related activities from crops to livestock can employ a lot of people directly and indirectly through value addition industries, while ensuring there were available and affordable food in the country.
He said that these are the kind of investments Zambia should promote as they touch a great majority of the people.
“Our target with our agriculture policies is to make sure a 25kg bag of mealie meal is kept at K50 or below. This is about survival of our people,” he said.
The current mealie meal prices for a 50kgs is over K100.
