By Staff Writer
Zanu PF Secretary for Information and Publicity Christopher Mutsvangwa has said the ruling party will superintend the distribution of food aid in Zimbabwe.
Mutsvangwa was speaking at a press conference at the party headquarters, on Monday.
The drought was recently declared a national disaster by President Emmerson Mnangagwa with Zimbabwe becoming the third Southern African country to make the declaration joining Zambia and Malawi.
In Zimbabwe, over 2.7 million people need food aid and the country has a grain deficit of 680 000 metric tonnes.
โWe have said the system of governance is being tweaked, we also are going to use our party (to distribute food aid).
โThe whole political structure of the party is being told thatโs why we had a central committee meeting yesterday (Sunday) to go and be on the lookout so that we superintend these systems by providing information to the central government about any areas where they may be deficits or where they may be discrepancies from our governance system.
โThe government bureaucracy beware that the party will be superintending people at village level to make sure that people donโt starve.
Mutsvangwa added that Zanu PF will ensure everyone receives food aid regardless of political affiliation as โZanu PF is a party that loves everyone in Zimbabweโ.
In previous years, Zanu PF has been accused of hijacking food aid distribution in rural areas, sidelining opposition members and supporters.
โItโs not Zanu PF that will be giving food, no, I told you the people that will be giving food is the government, people who work as extension officers coming from the ministry of agriculture, people of health and those of social welfare.
โThe government is different from Zanu PF on our side is to check if members of Zanu PF are all fed as a party that loves its people.
โSo on the issue of food there are no outcasts, there are no enemies of politics, we are one peopleโ, he said.
The government is going to be distributing 7 kilograms of food aid per individual.
Added Mutsvangwa, โWe previously focused on household; this time we have gone further down on the ladder we are focusing on individuals.
โCalculations have been done. We need about 7 kilograms of food per month per individual to survive.
โWe will make sure that is available, and as months come later a bigger requirement will raise that level of food production and this will be at the individual level not the household level.
โWe want to make sure that no one in the village, nobody in the ward goes hungryโ.
The Government will also chip in irrigation crops to help as winter approaches.
โWheat has higher value and productivity of wheat in winter is higher than that of maize so we will be making sure that our wheat stocks are higher and if need be, we can use wheat in exchange for maize which is our staple food and you know that wheat is got a higher value per ton than maize.
โSo there will be a deliberate bias by the government to make sure that all dams are fully utilized, so a lot of investments will go to centre pivot and drip irrigation in this seasonโ.
