Zambia fires Food Reserve Agency Chief.

By John Chola - 23/08/12 Zambia's Food Reserve Agancy (FRA) has fired its Chief Executive Officer, David Matongo (left).

Matongo a former law maker was appointed FRA CEO by President Michael Sata only last years to take over from Dr Anthony Mwanaumo who too was fired. Mwanaumo also took over from former CEO Fridah Luhila after she lost her job in a similar manner. During Matongo's tenure as FRA CEO the Agency had been faced with challenges in securing Maize and other grains going by the huge amount of the crop grain that had gone to waste. Two days ago Zambia's Agriculture Minister Emmanuel Chenda on his visit to Eastern Province was shocked to discover that the Agency still had not disposed of rotten maize which some unscrupulous persons were now repackaging for resale to FRA. Several agriculture experts believe that FRA lacked a sound strategy to secure the country's staple food. FRA still has stocks of grain from the last two seasons which is still lying uncollected in insecure satellite depots. Lots of uncollected maize had been socked this month following the off season rains the country had been experiencing. FRA is one of Zambia's most prioritised Agencies that receive huge amouts of budgetory allocations in time to enable it collect and secure the grain. The Ministry of Finance announced Thursday that it had disbursed about 49 per cent of the 2012 national budget totaling US$ 5 billion. Experts have observed that the FRA had taken up a huge chunk of this year's total disbursement between January 2012 to July 2012. End.