Union leaders urged Zimbabweans on Sunday to take action to stave off famine and collapse, warning that they may not make it to next year’s May Day due to worsening food shortages.
Zimbabwe has over the past two weeks faced crippling shortages of fuel and power and water outages, while basic foodstuffs such as maize grain are in short supply.
”Let’s take action whilst we still can, otherwise we will not even make it for next year’s May Day celebrations due to hunger,” said Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU,) at a May Day rally in the capital.
About 3 000 people turned out at the rally held under the theme ”Protect our rights, save our economy and our jobs” that the unions said was a call to action to halt the deterioration in living standards of workers.
President Robert Mugabe’s government blames the shortages, which have worsened in the aftermath of the March 30 parliamentary elections, on a drought but critics say bad policies are also at fault.
”Last year government announced that there was enough food and… right now the strategic grain reserves are empty and Zimbabweans are hungry with no food in sight,” said Matombo.
The government announced last week that it will take delivery of 1,2-tonnes of imported staple corn to augment its stocks but it has not approached international agencies such as the UN World Food
Programme for assistance.
In Harare shops, the national staple cornmeal is snapped up within hours if available, while margarine and even toothpaste have run out. Milk and butter supplies are erratic.
Fuel shortages have paralysed the transport industry with workers spending up to five hours waiting for buses to get to or from work, while motorists spend nights in queues at fuel pumps to fill up.
Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank said that the fuel crisis was caused by a foreign currency crunch and that the situation would improve in the coming weeks.
”It’s not a secret that our resources got a little bit over-stretched during the just-ended election, especially in the area of foreign currency,” Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono told the state-owned Sunday Mail.
”With respect to fuel, the situation should normalise over the next one-and-half to two weeks,” he said. Electricity supply has also been erratic and officials say the power cuts are set to persist as one of the country’s main power generators broke down last week and parts needed to repair it must be imported.
Water cuts have been so severe in some parts of the country that schools in one Harare suburb were reportedly sending children home after only three hours of classes due to fear of disease outbreak.
”From here, let us take time to start thinking seriously about what to do to improve the situation in the country. Our problems are just too many,” said Matombo. ”Last year we vowed that if prices rose further, we would take to the streets. What streets are you still waiting for?” asked ZCTU secretary general Wellington Chibebe.
ZCTU also called for a sharp increase of the minimum wage from the current equivalent of US$96 to US$387, a cut in personal income tax and free anti-Aids drugs to help the 2,3-million Zimbabweans living with HIV and Aids.
The European Union announced in March that it would give 15-million euros in humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe. – Sapa-AFP