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Zimbos exaggerate hunger: Minister

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ENVIRONMENT and Tourism minister Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu has accused Zimbabweans of exaggerating the levels of poverty in the country, and declared that the prices of basic commodities have actually gone down in US dollar terms.

BY BLESSED MHLANGA

ENVIRONMENT and Tourism minister Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu has accused Zimbabweans of exaggerating the levels of poverty in the country, and declared that the prices of basic commodities have actually gone down in US dollar terms.

Ndlovu’s utterances come at a time the World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that the UN agency was rapidly expanding an already sizeable emergency operation in Zimbabwe where drought, flooding and an economic crisis have plunged 7,7 million people — half the country’s population — into severe hunger.

Speaking to BBC’s Stephen Sucker on Hard Talk, Ndlovu was asked if he was aware of the levels of suffering in Harare’s sprawling suburb of Mbare, where families struggle to put a meal on the table everyday.

“I am asking you as a human being, as a Zimbabwean, do you go to places like Mbare, are you aware that there are children going hungry as we speak?” Sucker asked.

To which Ndlovu responded: “There tends to be also issues of exaggerating certain issues.”

Pressed to explain his views on the hunger afflicting Zimbabweans where degreed teachers are earning an equivalent of US$50 per month when a year ago they took home close to US$500, the minister blamed the drought.

“I admit that there is a challenge when it comes to food security. This is why we have put a flash appeal to the United Nations and all co-operating partners,” Ndlovu said.

“When we talk of people going hungry we are literally talking about food on the table. The direct impact coming from the drought we have experienced and this has stretched. We have had to import close to 70% of our grain just to make sure that there is adequate grain in the country. So we have had to focus more on addressing food security issues.”

Despite injecting more money into the economy a month ago, government has failed to stem cash shortages and the black market for both foreign and local currencies has continued to grow. Ndlovu said a huge appetite of cash was causing the crisis.

“We still have a challenge in the currency situation particularly on the speculative side. What has happened is that over the years Zimbabwe has had almost the largest penetration in terms of digital currency and this involved inclusion of a number of people,” he said.

“I think we are close to 85% financial inclusion in our mobile money system, but because of the fragility of our currency people have tended to want to use more of the hard currency, hence the pressure which we are seeing in the banks. This is creating loopholes and opportunities for arbitrage.”

Meanwhile, the WFP said huge funds were required immediately if the organisation was to meet the growing needs of the hardest-hit Zimbabweans.

In a statement, WFP said it planned to more than double the number of people it is helping by January to 4,1 million, providing life-saving rations of cereal and vegetable oil and a protective nutrition ration for children under five years of age.

“We are deep into a vicious cycle of sky-rocketing malnutrition that’s hitting women and children hardest and will be tough to break,” said WFP executive director David Beasley. “With poor rains forecast yet again in the run-up to the main harvest in April, the scale of hunger in the country is going to get worse before it gets better.”

WFP’s planned scale-up is a huge logistical undertaking, with the limited availability of Zimbabwean dollars and surging prices for basics presaging a near wholesale switch from cash assistance to food distributions.

It envisages the sourcing, purchase and delivery to the land-locked country of more than 240 000 metric tonnes of commodities through June, a challenge all the more daunting because drought and flooding have eroded food supplies across much of Africa.

An estimated US$293 million is required for WFP’s emergency response with less than 30% of that sum secured.