The United States warned on Tuesday of a severe food shortage in Zimbabwe, rejecting President Robert Mugabe’s boast of a relatively good agricultural season stemming from a so-called economic revival.

“We’ve been very concerned about the food situation in Zimbabwe for a long time now, but particularly we’re looking at severe food shortages in Zimbabwe this year,” US State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher told reporters.

He spoke after Mugabe declared on Tuesday that Zimbabwe was undergoing an economic “revival,” at the opening of the last session of the troubled country’s parliament before key elections next year.

Mugabe had said that his land reform programme had led to a good harvest and announced new laws tightening control over non-governmental organisations, some of which claim the contrary.

Boucher said the Zimbabwe government’s crop estimate of 2,4-million tons of corn was a “great difference” from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s estimate of 950 000 tons.

“And the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s estimate is more consistent with other estimates,” he said. “And so it really looks like there is going to be a very serious deficit this year in terms of food in Zimbabwe, despite the fact government can import some food itself.”

Boucher charged that Mugabe’s government was trying to curtail donor activity and engagement in Zimbabwe.

He also said Washington was “deeply concerned” the government was using its monopoly on food distribution to manipulate food availability for political ends, and that there needed to be another track of food distribution available to people.

The World Food Programme and the international community, as well as the United States Agency for International Development, have been tracking the food situation very closely in Zimbabwe.

“We are prepared for a rapid and an effective response,” Boucher said.

In April, five-million Zimbabweans needed food assistance and the United States is concerned that another similar number might need food assistance in the coming months, he said.

“So we’ll continue to try to establish accurate estimates of what the needs are, and we’ll continue to try to establish proper mechanisms for distribution of food to the people who need it, despite the government’s efforts to manipulate and hamper those efforts,” he added.

The southern African country has been hit by consecutive drought seasons but aid agencies say the situation has been exacerbated by the land reform programme that saw most whites forcibly evicted from their farms. – Sapa-AFP

Source: Daily Mail & Guardian
URL: http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119064/p>