Treasury should move in now to avert grain crisis

deficit areas and quite another actually having the food moved to the people. 
We should never allow logistical hiccups to derail the Government’s intent to ensure that no one starves, especially when some parts of the country have a surplus.
Last week we reported that the Grain Marketing Board had moved 170 000 tonnes of grain under the Government’s grain loan scheme, itself an emergency measure to alleviate food shortages in drought-prone areas.
It is quite critical for all arms of Government to move in unison so that there is no room for suspicions of insincerity on the State’s part as far as feeding mostly hungry rural communities is concerned.
According to the GMB, transporters are owed up to US$4 million for services rendered since last year when the programme was launched in December.
Surely, the Government is quite aware that transporters are in business and need to be paid and the danger with such a delay is that they may withdraw their services at this crucial hour when many families in drought-stricken areas have virtually nothing, and need the food the most as they prepare to till the land to produce food for their sustenance.
“Treasury had promised to clear the payment to transporters a fortnight ago. This payment is critical for the sustenance of this programme. We are still waiting for the payment,” said GMB corporate communications manager Mrs Muriel Zemura.
We call on the Government to ensure that the money is released so that we do not put the lives of up to a million people at risk due to a failure to deliver available grain to deficit areas.
We are aware that the World Food Programme has pledged to assist in terms of grain procurement and distribution, even providing livestock feed in drought areas, but the situation on the ground now demands action and action by our own Government.
Each household gets a 50kg bag of maize a month under the grain loan scheme and it is our hope that there is transparency in the distribution of the grain to avoid cases of exploitation of the needy by a greedy few.
The issue of transportation of inputs and grain brings to the fore logistical shortcomings in the area of transportation.
Late distribution of seed and fertiliser results in poor harvests that could see the Government having to feed many people next year and grain movement delays could result in political backlash and even starvation in some instances.
Also, to avoid cases of dependency for food, the Government should ensure that the grain loaned to villagers is collected in areas where there would have been good harvests.
Such grain could be channelled through the chiefs using the Zunde Ramambo route and the GMB could then collect the grain from the chiefs. 
Repaying the grain would make sure that our communal farmers work hard in order to be self-sufficient in years when they get good rains and the repaid grain would also boost GMB stocks and cushion the Government should there be a need to buy grain in the following season for another part of the country where crops would have failed.
We believe feeding our people is a national priority and that there should be no further delay in releasing money by Treasury to oil logistics to get the grain to those that need it.
A million Zimbabweans’ hopes lie in that decision.