The government has banned non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from distributing food aid directly to villagers in rural areas without the involvement of traditional leaders.
CCC has, however, condemned the move, describing it as a ploy by the government and ZANU PF to deny opposition supporters food aid.
The Acting Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, July Moyo said President Emmerson Mnangagwa had ordered that all food distribution programmes should be done through community structures.
Moyo was speaking during a Food Deficit Mitigation Strategy Sensitisation meeting in Bulawayo Thursday. He said:
Chiefs are selected by the communities, so are the headmen and village heads and the president just signs that. These community structures give neutrality to what we want to do.
Yes, a village is made of people who come from various political and church persuasions but in every village, headmen or head-women know how many households they have.
In order to be transparent, we as the government need to know about everybody who is going to be intervening, so that if they are making mistakes on the ground, those from the government can say, ‘this is not the agreement, you should work through these structures.’
Transparency is knowing people on the ground whether as NGOs or anybody.
Meanwhile, CCC Bulawayo spokesperson, Swithern Chiroodza, said some traditional leaders have publicly declared their allegiance to ZANU PF and they may use food aid as a weapon to punish opposition supporters in their areas. He said:
It is on record that some traditional leaders have openly shown their allegiance to Zanu PF.
This new directive is a ploy by ZANU PF to use the traditional leaders to deny opposition supporters food aid.
Food aid should be distributed by village and ward committees involving all stakeholders.
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This has happened so many times, yet none of those villagers, village heads, will do anything to stop it! More zpf inflicted misery, but hopefully zpf are ignored on this one. That said, it’s not as though this hasn’t happened before, but then those villagers haven’t done anything to get rid of zpf either. It’s called “self-inflicted harm”. How about doing something about it? I’d suggest getting all these “new farmers” to start producing food, although how that lot will feed the nation is speculative at best. Looks like more food imports will soon be required and a safe bet that only those with zpf member cards will get a look-in. Still, it’s what you’ve all been stupid enough to allow for decades!