Zimbabwe is facing another year of food shortages as three major fertiliser manufacturers have closed due to power cuts and a lack of raw materials, state media reported on Monday.
Eben Makonese, chief executive of Chemplex Coroporation, which runs the three semi-governmental firms, said Dorowa minerals, Iron Duke and Zimphos have not been able to operate since last month.
”We have sent people on forced leave and on half pay because of these operational challenges,” the Herald quoted him as saying.
The Dorowa mine, which produces phosphate rock concentrate, a key component in making fertiliser, ceased operations due to ”persistent power cuts” and lack of foreign exchange to import mining materials, said Makonese.
Fertiliser firms have so far produced 16 ,000 tonnes against a target of 600 000 tonnes for the forthcoming season.
Misheck Kachere, another senior company official, said fertiliser has been sold at a fifth of the cost of production as a result of government price controls imposed two months ago.
He said a bag of 50kg of fertiliser was selling at Z$88 000 Zimbabwe, while packaging alone cost Z$79 000.
The shortage of fertiliser will only add to the country’s food crisis, with increasing poverty and hunger blamed on controversial land reforms seven years ago.
Zimbabwe, once the region’s breadbasket, is now forced to import maize from neighbouring countries since President Robert Mugabe’s government seized about 4 000 white-owned farms.
Inflation ‘slowdown’ not making a difference
Meanwhile, a drop in the monthly inflation rate may have been greeted with sighs of relief by the Zimbabwean government, but analysts and consumers have seen little evidence that the economy has turned a corner.
After suppressing inflation data since May, the central statistics office announced last week that while the annual rate had hit a new high of 7 634,8%, month-on-month inflation in July was 31,6%, a fall of 54,6 percentage points on the June rate.
Finance Minister Samuel Mumbengegwi said the figure vindicated the government’s imposition of price cuts in late June, which effectively forced businesses and retailers to halve their tariffs.
But with shelves bare of everyday commodities such as cooking oil and sugar, most Zimbabweans find themselves paying well above the official rate on the black market, where the decline in the official inflation rate is irrelevant.
”The ordinary consumer is paying more than the actual price. This is the real inflation, not the inflation they show on graphs,” said Daniel Ndlela, an economist with Zimconsult. ”The said deceleration is only good for those who want to believe their own lies.”
Ndlela said there is evidence of a crisis everywhere, citing an example of people who were lined up at a hardware store to buy cement at the government price of Z$150 000 per 50kg.
”The queue resembled a desperate situation of people trying to enter Rufaro Stadium [in Harare] to watch a popular soccer match,” he said. The prospective buyers were not ”building homes or anything, but they will just resell the same bag at Z$1,5-million around the corner. ”That is real inflation, not what we hear.” — Sapa-AFP