739 bags of suspected fake fertiliser, four men in custody: the DEC unearths an unregistered plant weeks before planting

The planting season's first arrests are not of thieves but of manufacturers. The Drug Enforcement Commission has unearthed a plant allegedly involved in the manufacture of counterfeit fertiliser in the 9 Miles and Meanwood Vorna Valley areas — an operation spanning Chibombo District in Central Province and Chongwe in Lusaka Province — and seized 739 bags of suspected counterfeit product together with the raw materials and equipment allegedly used to make it.

Four men are in custody. DEC Public Relations Officer Allan Tamba named them in a statement on Thursday as Iwa Siame, a 40-year-old agricultural consultant, and businessmen John Ngulube, 34, Fortune Kalima, 49, and Stan Penti, 45. The charge sheet reads like a map of the alleged enterprise: production of farming requisites at an unregistered plant, possession of property reasonably suspected of being proceeds of crime, conspiracy to commit a felony, and money laundering. The particulars allege that between 1 January 2025 and 19 September 2026 the four, acting with others unknown, manufactured, compounded and processed farming requisites at premises not legally registered, and set up an unauthorised operation intended to defraud the public through deceptive packaging and distribution. The laundering count alleges that proceeds of the sales were used to acquire property for the suspects' benefit. They are expected in court soon.

The calendar gives the case its weight. Land preparation is under way and fertiliser demand is climbing toward the planting peak — the precise window in which a counterfeit bag does its damage, sold as nutrients and delivering dust. The bust lands in a country that has spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars chasing fertiliser self-sufficiency, with Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia's revived capacity and new private plants meant to push prices down by as much as two-fifths. Counterfeiters feed on exactly that kind of market: high demand, tight margins, and farmers for whom a bad bag is not a loss but a failed season. Tamba's advice on Thursday was blunt: buy only from legitimate suppliers and distributors, and report what looks wrong.

Sources: DEC statement via Public Relations Officer Allan Tamba (1 Oct 2026); Lusaka Times, "DEC Unearths Suspected Counterfeit Fertiliser Plant" (1 Oct 2026); Zambia Monitor, "DEC bursts counterfeit fertiliser plant in 9 Miles, Meanwood" (2 Oct 2026); News Diggers, "DEC nabs 4 for manufacturing fake fertiliser, seizes 739 bags" (1 Oct 2026); African Development Bank on Zambia's fertiliser self-sufficiency programme (Jan 2026).