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Patrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief
UNSCRUPULOUS people in the Midlands Province are allegedly buying subsidised grain at $15 per 50kg bag from the Grain Marketing Board depots before reselling it to the parastatal for $22.
Addressing villagers and government officials at the provincial launch of the Food-for-Work programme at Simchamba 1 Village, Chechete, Gokwe North, on Thursday, Midlands Provincial Administrator Cecelia Chitiyo said abusing drought relief food was a crime.
She said police were following leads on the scam.
While responding to concerns on the abuse of the subsidised grain facility by unscrupulous people raised by the Member of the National Assembly for Gokwe- Kubuyuni constituency, Cde Lovemore Chikomba, Chitiyo said the government had, through the department of Social Welfare, introduced two schemes to feed the nation.
These are the cash facility for those with the means to look for food and the free grain facility for vulnerable groups like the elderly and child-headed families.
Chitiyo said there were reports of abuse of the cash facility which saw unscrupulous people buying the subsidised grain from the Department of Social Welfare.
She said the government, with the sole aim of making sure that no one starves because of the prevailing drought, had reduced the price of a 50kg bag of grain to $15.
Chitiyo said beneficiaries should have been, under normal circumstances, members of society who are able bodied and can afford to buy the bag.
“However, we hear of people who are forming syndicates to buy the subsidised grain for resale on the market and some are selling back to GMB for $22. This shouldn’t be the case and people should desist from doing that,” she said.
The police, Chitiyo said, were on the lookout for such criminals abusing the government programme.
Responding to reports of food aid shortages in the constituency, Chitiyo said: “The Grain Marketing Board depots in the province had run dry but we’re now collecting food aid from Norton and before the end of the week, I promise that the villagers in this area will receive the food aid.”
She said the government would soon conduct another survey to ascertain if there was a need to increase the number of vulnerable people in need of food aid.
“We’ll increase the numbers if need be so that deserving people receive food aid. President Mugabe has said no one will die and the food aid will be made available to the needy people,” said Chitiyo.
Early this week, Chitiyo told The Chronicle that a councillor in Zvishavane was being investigated for allegedly squandering an unsubstantiated but significant amount of money from poor villagers in his ward whom he made to pay $5 each to receive a 50kg bag of maize.
She said the councillor was still to deliver the grain.
The money, Chitiyo said, was collected on the pretext that it would be used to hire transport to collect and distribute the food aid for them.
“Last week we visited Zvishavane on a fact finding mission on the suspected looting of food aid and names were mentioned and handed to the police who are investigating the matter. Perpetrators will be brought to book,” she said.
Chitiyo said in January, there were about 44,000 vulnerable people in need of food assistance in the province adding that the figure had as of last week Friday doubled to 88,259.
derick.khumalo