ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's poor bears the brunt of chronic shortages of basic commodities as a long drought and contentious government policies drive the African country deeper into an economic crisis, aid agencies have warned.
They say seven million Zimbabweans are facing severe food shortages this year.
Bread and other essential foodstuffs have been in short supply since President Robert Mugabe's government imposed price controls on most basic commodities a year ago. That, combined with poor rains and a contentious government land resettlement programme aimed at redistributing white-owned land to landless blacks, are cited by the aid agencies as the major causes of the food crisis.
Mr Burombo Mudumo, the manager of Baker's Inn, the country's largest bakery, said the government in June slashed the amount of wheat it supplied to Zimbabwe's millers by 40 per cent.
"In June we got 57 per cent of our (flour) requirements, 53 per cent in July, and only 39 per cent in August," he said.
The government has placed the blame for the food shortages on the drought ravaging southern Africa, denying that its land reforms have anything to do with the problem.
It announced this week it was importing an additional 25,000 tonnes of wheat from neighbouring Mozambique to supplement the summer harvest, which, Mr Mudumo said, was expected to fall at least 30 per cent short of the 350,000 tonnes needed.
"There has been a reduction of hectarage under wheat as a result of the ongoing land reform (programme)."