Chief Kaindu of the Kaonde people in Mumbwa district of Central Province says he will not sale his maize to FRA because lower as the price is, it also comes late.

And Chief Kaindu says his subjects have no knowledge about the need to acquire birth certificates for their children.

Speaking in an interview with News Diggers! the traditional leader said he would prefer selling his maize to briefcase buyer at a better price of K85 per 50 kilogram bag.

“We refused [to sale our maize at the K70 set price], we have agents who buy at K85. For me I have even sold my maize, I will not sale my maize at K70 no. I have never sold my maize to FRA, I always sale to agents. Government takes long to pay farmers. When time for buying inputs comes, you find that they haven’t paid you and the cost of fertilizer is high. On top of that they buy your maize at K65 and again they pay you very late,” Chief Kaindu said.

And asked about how knowledgeable his subjects were on issues of birth registration, Chief Kaindu said they did not know anything about it.

He said he would talk to clinic officers in his chiefdom and ask them to be sensitizing mothers on the need to acquire birth certificates once issued with a birth record for their newly newly born babies.

“I will go and find out from the clinics what they do when a mother gives birth, why don’t they give birth records to the mothers so that they can use that to acquire birth certificates for their children? My people don’t know anything about birth certificates. For them once they are given an under-5 card that’s it. They don’t use birth certificates. So I am going to talk to the clinic officers and their staff and find out if they give birth records for babies born from the centres. I will ask them, ‘they don’t have birth certificates and so what are you going to do about it?’ I think they will have to do something,” said Chief Kaindu.