Posted on 07/24/2004 4:06:06 AM PDT by Clive
BULAWAYO - Four provincial governors have written to the government asking it to authorize non-governmental rganizations to resume feeding programmes and avert mass starvation. But Paul Mangwana, the minister of public service, labour and social welfare, has not responded to the letters, some written a month ago, despite mounting starvation in rural and urban areas, government sources said yesterday.
According to the government's new policy on food aid, donor agencies can only operate in specific areas upon receiving authorisation letters from the ministry of public service, labour and social welfare.The ministry acts on recommendations from provincial governors. The governors of Masvingo, Matabeleland North and South and Bulawayo had told the minister that people in their provinces were starving and in urgent need of food aid, the sources said. But Mangwana, in keeping with the government¹s assertion that there would be enough food for Zimbabwe, had largely ignored the governors' letters.
Bulawayo governor Cain Mathema wrote to the Minister a month ago asking him to authorize World Vision to resume the urban feeding programme, said a senior official in his office. Neither Mangwana nor Mathema could be reached for comment.
While the government claims that the country has experienced a bumper harvest enough to supply all its citizens' needs, United Nations assessment reports indicate that 2.3 million Zimbabweans will need food assistance this year. ZIMVAC, which comprises NGO and government representatives, has also indicated that the country did not harvest enough crops to feed its population.
Although Zim Online could not get copies of the letters, Masvingo governor Josiah Hungwe confirmed that he had written to central government saying that he needed donor organizations to resume feeding people in his province.. However, Hungwe said, this was because farmers had been duped by donor organizations into planting the wrong varieties resulting in low yields.
Care International has acknowledged that it gave my people the wrong seed. So the hunger here has nothing to do with land reform. Care (International) should come back and feed the people because it was wrong in the first place to give people the wrong seed. We need food, yes, but the need is not of our own making. I have informed the relevant government minister about our problem here, said Hungwe.
World Vision Zimbabwe and the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) have been forced to delay the implementation of an urban feeding programme called the Market Assistance Program (MAP), worth over $10 billion, in Bulawayo, peri-urban Harare and Chitungwiza as a result of government's reluctance to issue the necessary authorization letters. About 1 million people, including malnourished children, were supposed to benefit from the programme, which sought to provide cheap sorghum to urban dwellers and was supposed to be launched two weeks ago.
Jean Claude Mukadi, the World Vision director for relief, denied that his organization was facing problems in implementing the programme. We have not experienced any challenges with the ministry. It granted us authority early last year to set up the programme and World Vision is only taking over from CRS, which are set to implement a similar programme in Chitungwiza (a dormitory town near Harare). But authoritative sources within the organization insisted that World Vision had been asked to seek fresh approval for their project, as had CRS for its Chitungwiza project, the sources said.
World Vision was asked by the government to go and collect letters from respective Governors giving testimony that they really wanted the organisation to continue with food aid, and the governors submitted these letters to the ministry which should have given the go ahead. To date World Vision is just sitting on tons and tons of sorghum because the government has not acted on the governors' letters.
Added a top official with the UN food agency arm, The World Food Programme (WFP): They (government officials) might delay but they will come back to us for assistance. People are starving, really starving and no-one, even those turned insane by politics, will contest that Zimbabwe is in dire need of food aid. But for any meaningful food assistance to come to Zimbabwe then there be will be need for a new MOU (memorandum of Understand) and the government doesn't seem to be in a hurry.
The official said the forecast figure of 2.3 million was expected to rise due to increased poverty in urban areas. A number of city councils have already started feeding programmes of their own because of rising urban poverty. Bulawayo City Council has reported 65 starvation related deaths this year alone.
The United States government on Tuesday accused the Harare regime of trying to curtail donor activity in the country.
Said US state department spokesman Richard Boucher: "We've been deeply concerned the Mugabe government is using its monopoly on food distribution to manipulate food availability for political ends, and ... there needs to be another track of food distribution available to people. Zim Online
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He's like Baghdad Bob, in complete denial of what is happening under his very nose.
what plea, Mugabe said there was a bumper harvest... he can't be wrong. A dictator can't admit he was wrong, its like China in that way.
I can't believe that Zimbabwe hasn't collapsed into complete anarchy yet. But the place does make a perfect crystal ball for viewing the future of South Africa.
Oh yes they will.
The people who are starving have been deemed the Wrong Kind of People by Mugabe. These are urbans workers, like those in Chitungwiza, or rural Ndebles in Matableland, or a combination of the two like the population of Bulawayo.
This is a version of the targeting of the Kulacks by Stalin.
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