Zimbabwe’s main opposition party claimed on Friday that government forecasts of a bumper grain harvest were false and that the southern African country faced a severe food crisis next year.
”Zimbabwe will require substantial amounts of food aid from international donors in order to prevent an unprecedented humanitarian crisis occurring in 2005,” Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) lawmaker and shadow agriculture minister Renson Gasela told a press conference in the capital.
Gasela said the government had inflated its estimated maize harvest as a pretext for putting a stop to international food aid, and claimed the government was secretly importing maize to distribute ahead of elections due in March.
”We have it on good authority that the government has been secretly importing maize, which is being deliberately held back from distribution due to the integral role it is likely to play in the Zanu-PF election campaign,” Gasela claimed.
Gasela insisted that a recent parliamentary committee report that the state-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB) had just 351 810 tonnes in stock in October was accurate, and warned it would soon be depleted.
The government estimate for the maize harvest was for 2,4 million tonnes. Authorities have said it is no secret that maize is being imported, but this is being done under deals signed some time ago.
Zimbabwe, which has faced successive years of food shortages, this year turned down international food aid because it believed it would produce sufficient food for its people.
Last month’s parliamentary committee report expressed concern over discrepancies between the government’s claim of a bumper harvest and low deliveries of grain to the GMB.
But the government dismissed the report and insisted farmers were holding on to their grain stocks in expectation of better prices. – Sapa-AFP