Zim appeals for food aid
2001-07-05 21:52
Harare - Zimbabwe said on Thursday it has begun asking donors, most of whom have shunned the increasingly repressive government, for aid to make up for looming food shortages.
Finance Minister Simba Makoni said the government's budget for the year did not include funds to import food to make up for a harvest shortfall.
"We have started sending messages to the international community indicating that we will be short and we will need assistance," Makoni said.
A regional food security monitoring group and the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation have forecast Zimbabwe will need to import about 600 000 tons of wheat and corn, the staple food, by early next year.
The UN food agency said disruptions in farm production caused by land redistribution policies were the main reason for a sharp
decline in harvests this year.
The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions have frozen loans to Zimbabwe in protest against the government's efforts to seize land without compensation from thousands of white commercial farmers in this agriculture-based economy. The institutions also protested against the costly deployment of 11 000 troops to back the Congolese government in the distant DRC war.
'I hope we can find common cause
Many donors have also shunned the country because of President
Robert Mugabe's increasingly authoritarian rule and a campaign of
violence by ruling party militants against opposition supporters.
Makoni appealed to donors to forget these disputes and help
Zimbabwe. "I hope - notwithstanding factors influencing our relations with international donors - where human lives are affected we can find common cause," he said.
Zimbabwe also faced severe shortages of hard currency for essential imports and aimed to overhaul its policies on handling hard currency, Makoni said.
But there was "no consensus" in the government on whether to
devalue the Zimbabwe currency, he said. Devaluation would worsen
already soaring inflation.
The Zimbabwe dollar trades at a pegged official rate of 56 to the US dollar, but sells at more than 160 to the US currency on the unofficial market.
"Our dollar is overvalued. The bottom line is very few people trade at the official rate. That is the fact on the ground. It is not realistic or sustainable for us to maintain the rate where it is," he said.
Though devaluation was not imminent, it could not be ruled out
later, he said.
The government last week offered incentives to exporters to hand over their hard currency earnings for state purchases of gasoline, energy and other imports that would yield them reasonable returns, even if those returns did not match gains from the unofficial exchange rate.
If the incentives were shunned, Makoni said, the government might be forced to introduce rigid exchange controls similar to those of the socialist-style command economy of the first decade after independence in 1980. - Sapa-AP
- SAPA