The Sunday Mail
MATABELELAND provinces are staring a crippling food shortage amid indications that maize supplies for commercial milling stand at one week supply, the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ) Matabeleland Provinces Chapter has said.
Due to the dire food situation in the provinces, chairman of the GMAZ Matabeleland Provinces Chapter, Mr Thembinkosi Ndlovu is pleading with Agriculture Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made to swiftly issue importation permits to maize traders to arrest the situation. In a letter dated December 24, 2015 and copied to top Government officials including the Acting President Phelekezela Mphoko, Mr Ndlovu threatened to drag Dr Made to court to compel him to issue the importation licences.
It was widely expected that the High Court application to pressurize Dr Made into allowing maize traders to import maize from South Africa and South America was going to be filed last Thursday.
Reads the letter in part: “. . . we write to advise that the maize situation in Matabeleland provinces is now dire and degenerating into a security matter. I regret to advise you that maize supplies for commercial milling in Bulawayo currently stand at one week supply and the situation will deteriorate to no supply very soon.
“Our chapter is deeply disappointed by your ministry(‘s) decision to decline application of maize from South Africa and South America for the milling of maize meal and livestock feeds.
“Food is a constitutional right and we are entitled to demand, as we hereby do, for your office to start, forthwith, to issue permits to all grain traders which are mentioned in the maize importation action plan submitted to you by our national office.
“However, if we fail to get your cooperation in this regard we will have no option but to seek the intervention of courts to compel your office to do the same.”
The request by GMAZ comes at a time when the government of Zambia has advised the Food Reserve Agency that it “reserves the right on who to sell maize to”.
Harare had planned to import 400 000 tonnes of maize from the northern neighbour which had harvested more than most Southern African countries last cropping season. It is understood that about 280 000 tonnes of maize had been imported from Zambia before the export ban was effected.
Poor logistics and tight border controls were throttling maize imports.
Efforts to obtain a comment from Dr Made were fruitless as his mobile phone was not reachable.
The looming shortage of maize meal in Matabeleland provinces has also impacted on businesses that were recording brisk business from the sale of the commodity. Zimbabwe produced about 900 000 tonnes of grain last season against an annual demand of 1,8 million tonnes, hence the food shortages.
