MINISTER of Agriculture Mtolo Phiri has asked millers to take advantage of the good maize price being offered by the Food Reserve Agency so that mealie meal prices are stabilised.

In an interview, Wednesday, Mtolo said there was no need for mealie meal prices to be high at the moment because government, through FRA, was offering a good price of maize at K200 per bag.

“The government is offering millers, any other buyers of maize and exporters of maize at K200 from the Food Reserve Agency. I think that is more than sufficient. And we are encouraging people to come and buy and export. We are encouraging the millers to take advantage of the good price so that we stabilise our mealie meal. There is no need for mealie meal to be expensive, maize is selling at K200 a bag at this point in time. I think the only cushion we are providing is that we are making the maize very available to millers. That’s the maximum we can do to make sure that the maize is available and good market price. So millers are free to go and buy maize from FRA, the maize is selling at K200 and that is the best we can do. There would be no other arrangements that we would make other than that,” said Mtolo.