Zimbabwe -- Zanu PF chef blasts Mugabe over food

Zimbabwe Standard ^ | 2004-06-20 | Savious Kwinika

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CHIKOMBEDZI - Zanu PF Central Committee member, Titus Mukhungulushi Chauke, has described recent claims by President Robert Mugabe and government officials that Zimbabwe had enough food to last until the next harvest as "irresponsible and utter rubbish".

The veteran politician from the minority Shangaan tribe said such utterances by Zanu PF chiefs were "illogical" as they chase away international food donor agencies, leaving Zimbabweans suffering.

"This is utter rubbish. People, hundreds of thousands of people in Chiredzi, Chivi, Mwenezi and some pockets in Zaka districts are still buying food simply because they did not realise a bumper harvest," said Chauke.

"It don't want to sound as if I am fighting my leaders in the Press but that statement, from whoever said it, was unfortunate as it suggests some gross irresponsibility as well as sounding like politicking," said the outspoken politician.

Mugabe recently said Zimbabwe does not need food aid and told international donor agencies to give their food aid to more needy countries.

Chauke said although some villagers in the perennially drought-stricken regions of Masvingo, Matabeleland provinces had realised reasonable yields, the harvests were not enough to last until the next season.

He said thousands of villagers in Chiredzi South - particularly the elderly and children under the age of five - still needed food aid.

A visit by The Standard to Chikombedzi, Mwenezi, Lupane and some parts of Matabeleland North province revealed that thousands of families were still in need of food assistance.

Only last month - 38 people including children under the age of five died in Bulawayo - Zimbabwe's second largest city, due to food scarcity, according city council documents.

Statistics also indicate that 65 people, among them children under the age of five, died in Bulawayo between September and December 2003, because of lack of food.

Early this year the World Food Programme (WFP), a major food aid donor to Zimbabwe, was prohibited from conducting a food assessment exercise by the government.

However, The Standard last week met with CIO operatives travelling with the WFP personnel, who were assessing the food situation in the Matabeleland North region.

It emerged that the spy agents have forced themselves into the WFP food assessment programme in an effort to censor information regarding the real situation on the ground.

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Allowing the CIO to interfere without raising a hue and cry will undermine the credibility of any WFP report on Zimbabwse with the donor nations.

Zimbabwe was claiming a "bumper maize harvest" of 1.7 million tonnes but the Commercial Farmers Union had said during the summer that has just ended that less than 1/3 of the confiscated commercial farm land was still under cultivation.

There were also massive shortages of inputs (seed and fertilizer) at the beginning of the summer.

It is now winter. The standard winter crop in Zim is wheat (notwithstanding Ag Minister Made's attempt at promoting winter maize cultivation). See the article that I am also posting entitled "Huge wheat deficits feared"

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Zim bump.