Ensure maize import window free of scams

A strategic response to the looming maize crisis is urgently required. Debate about maize shortage and the resulting rise in prices, which might worsen in the coming weeks, has dominated public discourse for months but little is being done to pre-empt and abate the inevitable crunch.

Instead, there is contestation between the Agriculture ministry and the Strategic Grain Reserve board over the quantities of maize to be imported, and the timing. The ministry is contemplating approving importation of 12.5 million bags of maize to plug the deficit and mitigate foreseeable hunger. However, the SGR board is not convinced. It argues that the government should only allow importation of two million bags to avoid saturating the market since the season of harvesting new maize crop is nigh; in just a matter of weeks. It seems the department and agencies responsible for food sufficiency are operating at cross-purposes.

An equally edgy concern is that, should the government allow purchase of maize from outside, who gets the licence? Underpinning that is the disquiet over the fact that grain transaction is always riddled with corruption. Wherever the window is opened, wheeler-dealers with connections in high places quickly seize the opportunity to procure the cereal cheaply but sell it to the government at exorbitantly inflated prices. They end up making a killing while saturating the market and crippling local farmers.

But we must deal with priorities. First, we need clarity and transparency on the exact quantity of maize required to plug the shortfall between now and the new harvesting season so that at no point should the country go hungry. Secondly, we need precise projections on when the season’s harvest will be ready and the expected quantities to enable proper planning of the stock required to last the remaining period.

Thirdly, the government has to publicise those who get licences to procure the maize, the criteria applied to pick them and the quantities involved. We are calling for openness because, from past experience, crises such as this are used to milk money from the public.

Beyond the immediate remedies, however, we must revisit the question of sustainable and long-lasting food security. It is unacceptable that the country is pushed into a food crisis every other cycle due to crop failure, poor marketing and post-harvest mismanagement. This creates the necessity for automation of farming, proper storage and appropriate structures for marketing and distribution of the yields. In the immediate term, the government must unlock the impasse over maize imports.