Africa: 100 Solar Milling Plants to Be Operational Soon

Posted on :Thursday , 4th February 2016

The Zambia Cooperative Federation (ZCF) has announced that the 100 solar milling plants under the Presidential Initiative will be operational by February 15 this year.

ZCF director general James Chirwa said in an interview that all the solar mills arrived in Zambia last month from China and the installation is currently ongoing in different parts of the country.

The milling plants, which are being installed in each of the country's 10 provinces, are aimed at cutting down the cost of mealie-meal that has reached unprecedented levels in recent months.

Three of the plants which arrived earlier last month are already producing the staple food in Kasama, Luwingu and Solwezi.

The mealie-meal is being sold at K55 per 50 kilogramme bag of breakfast and K50 for roller meal of the same quantity.

"The milling plants have all arrived and the installation is currently taking place and we hope that all of them will be in full operation by February 15.

"This is an important milestone because it is going to cut off factors that have caused the increase in mealie-meal prices in Zambia," Mr Chirwa said.

The country has experienced an unprecedented hike in the pricing of the staple food, forcing the intervention of President Edgar Lungu as millers threatened to increase prices.

The increased Zesco power outages coupled with maize shortages had also forced the Government to offload the commodity to the millers in a bid to stabilise the price of mealie-meal.

"As fuel prices go up as well as the cost of electricity, it has become almost inevitable for the cost of mealie-meal to also increase but this will now be different. We have already proved it in the districts where we are producing," he said.

Mr Chirwa assured the consumers that the cost of mealie-meal produced by solar plants would be affordable and sustainable.

Apart from helping to reduce mealie-meal prices, solar hammer mills are expected to create more than 3,000 jobs.

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