e Z$347 billion (about
US$1.02 million at the parallel market rate) to buy food for 600,000 households
it had identified as hungry, due to poor harvests after a combination of
drought and critical shortages of inputs. The government’s budget
allocation would “buy less”, said John Robertson, a Zimbabwean economist, because
of the rapidly depreciating Zimbabwean dollar and foreign exchange
shortages.
Rates on the black market have been rising steeply, with one US dollar
now costing about 340,000 Zimbabwean dollars, an increase of around
Z$120,000 per US dollar since the additional money for relief was announced.
Renson Gasela, an expert on agriculture and a former chief executive officer
of the state-owned Grain Marketing Board (GMB), pointed out that “in real
terms” the money allocated by the government for the rollout of food would
only buy about 40,000 metric tonnes (mt) of cereals. In order to avert
widespread hunger, particularly in the worst affected provinces of Masvingo and
Matabeleland South and North, the government has already bought 500,000
metric tonnes (mt) of grain from Zambia and Malawi, leaving a net
deficit of over 600,000mt to meet the national requirement, according to the
official daily newspaper, The Herald. Mumbengegwi also set aside Z$800 billion
(about US$2.3 million) to import maize, and for the GMB to purchase grain from
farmers.
The newspaper said the allocation would put the government “in the
driving seat in terms of drought relief purposes, ahead of non-governmental
organisations [NGOs] and international donors, such as the World Food
Programme (WFP)”. The amount seems small compared to the US$118 million
appeal launched by WFP to provide immediate assistance to 3.3 million
of the 4.1 million people that UN agencies estimate will be facing severe food
shortages from now until March 2008. The remainder will be supported by
NGOs, including the Consortium for the Southern Africa Food Emergency
(C-SAFE). “The reality is that the central bank’s foreign currency
coffers are severely strained and, as has been happening in the past, the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe will be forced to go to the black market to scoop out
the much needed foreign currency,” Robertson told IRIN. The time factor
would also be critical in procuring the food, as the Zimbabwean dollar was
depreciating in value at a fast pace. Robertson speculated that since
the government was “heavily burdened by both domestic and external debts”
it could be left “with no option but to print more money and, in the
process, push up inflation”. The government-controlled Central Statistical
Office maintains that inflation is slightly over 7,000 percent, but the
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, a watchdog body, has said it had reached more than
13,000 percent. In late June the government ordered prices to be cut by
50 percent and forced businesses to comply, but the exercise backfired as
it led to widespread shortages in shops and in the manufacturing industry,
with commodities surfacing in the black market at exorbitant prices.
Gasela said the GMB’s silos were “virtually empty” because farmers were
reluctant to sell the little they harvested for the poor prices the
government was offering. The government backtracked on its
price-control policy in August, and since then prices have shot up again, further
compromising food security: basic commodities such as maizemeal, the
staple food, are now beyond the reach of the poor. Maize prices in US dollar
equivalents in three monitored markets – Harare, the Zimbabwean
capital; Bulawayo, in the southwest, the second city; and the eastern city of
Mutare – rose by 23 percent on average, from US$1.24 per kg in July to
US$1.52 per kg in August, according to the USAID-funded Famine Early
Warning Systems Network (FEWS-NET), which used the official revised exchange
rate of Z$15,000 to US$1. Rural residents have begun to work for food. Tapiwa
Goronga, 48, a resident of Chikomba district, southwest of Harare,
walks 15km to the village shopping centre three times a week, where he does
odd jobs for the owner of a grinding mill, for which he is paid three kg of
maizemeal. “I did not harvest anything this year and the grinding mill
is my only hope, otherwise my four children and wife would starve.”
Post published in: News