Zim plans food imports
17/03/2005 13:27  - (SA)  

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Harare - Zimbabwe, which told international relief agencies just under a year ago that it had enough food stocks, announced on Thursday that it was importing grain in the wake of a disappointing harvest.

The head of the state-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB) said on state television that he was importing corn grain, the national staple, in the wake of lower than expected harvests. He did not provide figures.

"We are in the process already of putting a new contract in place, (and) deliveries will be coming into the country shortly," said Samuel Muvuti.

"Also, we still have some contracts which were signed some months if not a year or so ago, which are still running. What we have simply done to these contracts is to actually ensure that they perform at a faster rate than they were doing all along," he said.

Using food

The planned food imports came as Zimbabweans prepared for the March 31 parliamentary elections and accusations from human rights groups that President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF is using food hand-outs as an electoral tool.

Zimbabwe last month announced it had earmarked 12 billion Zimbabwe dollar to about 1.5 million needy people.

Muvuti tried to allay fears of severe food shortages, saying the government had a contingency plan to avert starvation.

The national strategic food reserves hold enough grain to sustain the country in the next 12 to 15 months, despite the anticipated low yield caused by erratic rains this year, said state television quoting Muvuti.

The Southern African country told international donors in May last year that it would not need emergency food aid because it expected a bumper harvest of 2.4 million tonnes of maize.

By September the GMB announced it was expecting to receive 750 000 tonnes of maize from local farmers before the harvest due next month, much lower than the country's needs of around two million tonnes.

Mugabe had insisted in a television interview in May that his country's citizens were not hungry while rejecting suggestions that Zimbabwe needed food aid.

"Why foist this food upon us? We don't want to be choked," he had said.

The 2.4 million tonnes predicted for the harvest was described by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as "absurd" and a ploy by the ruling party to win votes in the March 31 parliamentary elections.

Mugabe and his party have been promising people during poll campaigns that no one will go hungry. - AFP

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