Gasela food crisis

Tichaona Sibanda
15 September 2005

An expert on food has warned that the ruling Zanu (PF) regime will get a ‘wake up call’ when people start dying of hunger in the country if they do not act now to avert a catastrophic food crisis.

The MDC spokesman for agriculture, Renson Gasela, said the regime should also desist from issuing incorrect information concerning the precarious grain situation.

There are fears many thousands of people will die of hunger in the country because of the man made disaster in the agricultural sector, created by the Zanu (PF) regime. Already some people are reported to be dying of hunger in the rural areas and most of these deaths are going unreported in the state media.

Last week a top civil servant lifted the veil of secrecy on the food situation when he revealed that the country’s grain silos had run dry.

Simon Pazvakavambwa, the permanent secretary in the ministry of Agriculture, laid bare the true facts on the ground when he declared; ‘we have in our silos 3 weeks supply of food and if for some reason imports stop, we are doomed.’

Asked how government will extricate itself from this dire situation Gasela, a former chief executive officer of the GMB, laughed at the suggestion that the regime will resolve the crisis.

He said; ‘We will be expecting too much from them to think they will get out of this mess. These guys (government) are always failing to do anything right.’

Given the situation now he said, they will soon get a wake up call when they start counting dead bodies, people dead from hunger.