By Moses Chibaya
Despite pomp and fanfare that characterised President Robert Mugabe’s seventh inauguration -chicken slice and six packs of soft drinks being distributed to almost everyone who cared to get them- amongst those that celebrated the landslide victory-which the MDC has dismissed as rigged-were people from rural areas now faced with the reality of hunger ravaging most parts of the country.
Hunger is on the rise in the country, according to World Food Programme (WFP) an estimated 2.2 million people-one in four of the rural population-expected to need food assistance during the pre-harvest period early next year. This is the highest since early 2009 when more than half the population required food support.
Joseph Kapfunde, (62), of Nyandoro village under Chief Chinyerere in Pfungwe area-part of Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe-Mugabe’s stronghold, says he is now being forced to exchange his livestock with maize.
“Hunger is rampant here we no longer receive adequate rains in this area. Some of us who are still able are into gold mining, but those of us who are not able to do the alluvial gold mining,” Kapfunde said.
He added that some of them now have to depend on selling their livestock.
“When you are desperate you can exchange a beast with ten bags of maize,” Kapfunde said.
Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe legislature, Simbaneuta Mudarikwa, said he is not aware of the situation on the ground at the moment referring the matter to the district administrator.
“I think we need to go to the ground together and also get statistics from social welfare people and the DA. We were only sworn in last week so the person is the district administrator. I haven’t had of anything as of yet but if you want to get the actual information go to the district administrator,” Mudarikwa said.
Alice Luther ,(64), under chief Mudavanhu in Mberengwa West said the little that they harvested is over and are now being forced to by a bucket of maize for US$7 making it difficult to survive as they don’t have any source of income apart from seasonal farming which is now difficult due to climate change.
Mberengwa West Member of Parliament, Joram Gumbo, acknowledged that hunger is there in his area but is not as widespread so far as people are still consuming what they harvested.
“It is true generally hunger is there we cannot deny that some have but most people don’t have. At the moment it is not severe like other areas even those that are selling maize it is not fast selling.”
Gumbo added: “For now we don’t have plans, even by the time that we went to elections GMBs in Mataga, Gweru and Zvishavane they had no maize and they were expecting maize from Zambia am not sure if the maize is now and the country as you know we were not in the office.
“You can talk to the governor because all of us we were not there, there was no government. The provincial governors are supposed to know. Our area is a drought area and we usually experience it because of the poor rains.”
WFP in a statement says it is working with its partners in order to meet the increased needs.
“Cash transfers will be used in selected areas to afford people flexibility and help support local markets. Distributions will be gradually scaled up from October until harvest time in March next year,” reads part of the statement.
It said the current high levels of food insecurity are being attributed to various factors including adverse weather conditions, the unavailability and high cost of agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilizers and projected high cereal prices due to the poor maize harvest.
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