By Pemphero Malimba:
The Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Irrigation has directed the National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA) to find ways to demolish eight silos that are tilted at Kanengo in Lilongwe.
The committee’s Vice-Chairperson, Ulemu Chilapondwa, made this statement when members of Parliament under the committee inspected NFRA offices on Tuesday.
Chilapondwa said that the tilted silos posed a threat to the lives of NFRA workers operating at Kanengo.
He added that the committee was prepared to lobby for funds to demolish the silos and construct new ones.
“From 2003 until now, when the silos started tilting, without a steadfast decision being made, is not good for our nation.
“We need to do away with the tilted ones, because even someone who is not technically equipped can understand that maintaining them will be very difficult. It would be better to demolish them and then seek funds to construct eight new ones,” Chilapondwa said.
During the inspection, NFRA Chief Executive Officer, George Macheka, said that K23 billion has been set aside to procure 20,000 metric tonnes of maize, which will add to the 50,000 metric tonnes of maize currently available in its stock.
According to Macheka, this follows the agency, which had 105,000 metric tonnes of the commodity, dispatching 50,000 metric tonnes of maize to the Department of Disaster Management Affairs to assist people affected by hunger and those dealing with various emergencies.
Macheka also revealed that NFRA had dispatched 5,000 metric tonnes to the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) to help stabilise maize prices in the country.
Chilapondwa commented that the committee was pleased with the progress made by NFRA and challenged the agency to allocate more tonnes of maize to Admarc.
“We are happy with the additional 20,000 metric tonnes; the only problem is that they should start buying the maize as quickly as possible, because time is not on our side,” he said.
Macheka explained that the agency was engaging a consultant to ascertain the future of the tilted silos.
“We have not been using the silos for the past 20 years, so we are engaging a consultant to determine the way forward.
“What we would prefer is to resolve this issue now and immediately so that we can know the next steps. Most likely, we are looking at demolishing them, so we can build new ones,” he said.
The eight silos, which have a storage capacity of 40,000 metric tonnes, were first discovered to be tilting in 2003.
NFRA has a total storage capacity of 310,000 metric tonnes.
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