Milk Crisis In Algeria Spawned By Smuggling Of “Milk Powder” To Tunisia And Morocco

The nagging milk supply crisis again came to the limelight after a protest organized on Tuesday by milk distributors in front of the Colaital Jibli compound, where they threatened to wage an open-ended strike if their amount of milk powder they consider as “unfair” is not reviewed upward.

Equally on Tuesday, the milk producers for their part staged a protest at the premises of the General directorate of the Milk compound in the district of Birkhadem during which they accused the distributors of causing the milk crisis witnessed by the capital for seven months now, arguing that milk powder is available and is sufficient until 2018, stressing that the milk crisis was sparked off by the distributors themselves.

In response to the comments that prompted them to organize the protest, Mr Farid Eulmi, Coordinator of the milk distributors’ office for the province of Algiers said that everything the compound’s Manager said on this vexed issue was “baseless”, as he put it. 

“If the milk was available, why has the milk production been   curtailed from 570,000 liters to 425 thousand liters, or 30 percent a day, and why had we to wait for more than 10 hours to be given the required amount of milk powder”, he underscored.

The Coordinator also said that the first defendants accountable for the milk crisis are the National Dairy Office and other shadowy parties which have endeavored to lessen the amount of the country’s imported milk powder by more than 40 percent.

The protesters said: “Don’t ask us about the milk powder, the latter escapes through smuggling towards Tunisia and Morocco.” The protesters addressed the Director of the Dairy Office as saying: “Your accusations are groundless. We have all the evidence that condemns you and that clears us of any price manipulations”, they hammered.

The protesters, thus threatened to launch an open-ended strike, a decision that will certainly wreak an acute milk supply crisis in the country’s capital and neighboring provinces, while demanding the intervention of Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Abdelkader Bouazgui to end the crisis by providing them with the required amount of milk powder.