SHORTAGE OF MEALIE-MEAL LOOMS AS NMC RATIONS GRAIN

MANZINI – Do not be surprised if you do not find mealie-meal in shops.

This will be because the National Maize Corporation (NMC) is rationing the supply of grain and this follows the outbreak and spread of COVID-19 in the world, including the Kingdom of Eswatini. Nokwanda Dlamini, the Marketing and Communications Manager at NMC, confirmed the latest developments. She said as it was well known that the world, Eswatini included, was battling with the outbreak and spread of the coronavirus, which had literally crippled several economic sectors the world over, the supply chain in which NMC operated, had not been spared.

She said even though they had not encountered any stock crisis so far, they remained cautious in their movements. She said this was to ensure that even when the food supply chain went under enormous pressure, as it had been predicted, they would be able to protect the country’s food reserves as best as possible. Therefore, she said with the different restrictions and protocols that had been put in place to help limit the rate at which the virus spread, particularly because their grain were not only sourced from Eswatini, they had chosen to take the cautious route. She said this was an effort to ensure that all their clients were supplied with grain so as to help satisfy consumer demands, not just in the short-term, but the mid-term as well.

Demand

She said following the radical measures that had been taken by some countries, including Eswatini, to fight the virus, which include lockdowns, there had been quite a lot of trepidation on the part of consumer demand of certain products in general, grain included. She said this resulted in panic buying and NMC had tried as best as possible to project the position of the market going forward as well as the worst case scenario. “It was in that regard that we resorted to carefully rationing the quantities in order to ensure that we have enough to supply the Kingdom of Eswatini even in the worst of cases,” Dlamini said.

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