“Politicians must not interfere in food distribution” – Government

GOVERNMENT has said politicians and those in the position of power should not interfere with the food distribution programme as no food hungry families should be excluded from benefiting from grain relief.

The Government will be feeding 6,1 million rural people across the country until March next year as most communities did harvest anything due to El Nino weather conditions.

Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister July Moyo said food distribution is village centric and political figures must not interfere with the process.

“We have been very emphatic in the rural areas. We want this to be led by the traditional leaders, the chiefs, headman and village heads, is the lowest unit of supervisors. We don’t expect the village heads to discriminate against anyone. They should look at the hunger situation and provide to anyone who needs that food aid. Interference might come from those who are not coming from the village. We have been saying politicians do not interfere. Let’s not use our positions to end up having this food aid going to undeserving people,” said Minister Moyo.

“As the President says we must not leave anyone behind, let us not leave anyone behind and we are basing it on over 35 000 villages in the country.”

He said the Government will be conducting spot checks to ensure that food aid is provided to intended targets.

“But what is going to make a difference is how you monitor, how you follow up. Monitoring will be done at district level by the district civil protection unit which is led by the district development coordinator is our first line of monitoring. We have provincial level but because this a community means of testing, we need to create a system where we can go and sample, was this selection properly done, was there any favouritism, we need to roll out over this over the whole period up to March next year,” he said.

-@nqotshili