second most important staple food after maize.
The bread shortage, a result of a severe shortage of wheat, began about two weeks ago after President Robert Mugabe’s government ordered bakers to sell bread at Z$200 instead of the $350 a loaf, bakers say is enough for them to be able to recoup the costs of importing flour.
Some bakers interviewed by ZimOnline said they were now only making rolls, buns and cakes whose prices are not controlled by the government, which last week ordered the arrest of the manager of Harare’s biggest bakery for selling bread above the state gazetted price.
Only the rich elite can afford to buy higher-priced cakes and buns in Zimbabwe, where the prices of goods are always rising and inflation is at 1 204.6 percent.
A National Bakers Association (NBA) spokesman said capacity utilisation in the industry had crashed down to 30 percent for smaller bakers and 15 percent for bigger operations.
“Bigger bakers are critically affected,” said the NBA spokesperson, adding that the industry could be forced to retrench most of the 20 000 workers it currently employs.
Several workers were already on forced leave while others were working shorter shifts according to the NBA official.
Bulawayo baker and a senior member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party, Eddie Cross, said several bakeries in the city had stopped production altogether.
“We have stopped production. We don’t have flour,” said Cross.
In Masvingo, nearly all the shops did not have bread as a spokesman of bakers there, Albert Chizi, said they had resolved not to bake anymore bread until the government lifted price controls.
Chizi said: “We have since unanimously agreed to stop indefinitely the production of bread. Our reasons (for doing so) are not political but purely economic.”
Predictably, while there was no bread on most shop shelves in Masvingo and other cities., the key staple was available on the streets from black market traders, making a killing selling the commodity at $350 – the same price the government say bakers should not charge for bread.
A bread vendor in Masvingo, Naison Mayo, refused to reveal who supplies him with the bread he sells but was ready to defend the price he is charging buyers.
“We are getting the bread out of this town, so we have to charge $350 in order to make a profit,” said the Masvingo bread vendor.
The bread shortage is just one of many severe symptoms of Zimbabwe’s seven-year old economic crisis that has also spawned shortages of fuel, electricity, essential medicines, hard cash and just about every basic survival commodity. – ZimOnline
Post published in: News