NYANDENI, ZIMBABWE // Millions of Zimbabweans suffer from chronic food shortages, the result of the destruction of agriculture by Robert Mugabe's misrule, but Jacob Mathe has a greater insight into the system than most.
Mr Mathe, 69, lives in the village of Nyandeni, deep in Matabeleland South province, which is both the area worst affected by hunger and a stronghold of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. A retired teacher, it is his role to try to obtain staples for the 335 households in the village from the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), the state body that is the only legal buyer and seller of cereals in the country.
In a normal market economy, Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of price acts as a signal to buyers and sellers, and motivates extra production in times of shortage. But in Zimbabwe the Marxist-Leninist outlook of the authorities means that it is the overbearing hand of the state that determines who receives the most basic commodities of all. It has often been claimed, although never proved by independent witness accounts, that membership cards from Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party are needed to access GMB distributions, which are sold at a tiny fraction of the black market price. But as Mr Mathe reveals, that is not necessary.
In February he applied for 335 50-kg bags of the staple mealie meal, one for each family in Nyandeni, from the GMB office in the town of Gwanda, a few kilometres away. As required, he submitted a list of every head of household that would benefit. And then he began to wait. "I spend some time waiting, maybe some months," he said. "You are told 'come tomorrow', but tomorrow never comes. You will be there for months trying to get food."
For three weeks in July, he went to the GMB office every day, until the delivery finally materialised - only to be less than half what was requested. "Someone along the line went and procured 200 bags, leaving us 135. Someone with some political weight said he was going to take 200 for his party." For those with the necessary connections, obtaining subsidised GMB grain and reselling it on the black market is a guaranteed way to make enormous profits.
There was nothing Mr Mathe could do in the circumstances, and like the other villagers, he just does what he can to get by, subsistence farming a small patch of land; the value of his pension was destroyed long ago by Zimbabwe's hyperinflation, officially 11.2 million per cent but independently estimated as high as 531 billion per cent. He eats at most twice a day. "I'm weak, even mentally. You can't think well if you are hungry," he said.
Missing meals is common. At the village playschool, Nhlanhla, five, when asked what he had for breakfast, answered: "Nothing." One of the contributory factors to the collapse of Zimbabwe's grain production - it was once a net exporter of food - has been poor rains for several years in a row. But other countries in the region with similar climate challenges have nowhere near as widespread shortages.
In Zimbabwe, the issue is exacerbated by Zanu-PF's land seizures, which wrecked commercial agriculture, and the systemic failures it introduced by trying to bypass the market. The GMB pays farmers a pittance for their crops, giving them no incentive to produce a surplus. Even distributions by aid agencies have been delayed by a two-month ban the authorities imposed. Paul Themba Nyathi, a founder of the MDC who lives in Nyandeni, distributes food among the villagers whenever he can, but the causes of the problem are beyond his reach.
"I despair we will be able to restore those levels [of production]. I think too much damage has been done in the last 28 years," Mr Nyathi said. Mr Mugabe's government insists it is committed to ensuring no one starves. "We are doing everything we can to ensure that maize is available to everyone," said Didymus Mutasa, the national security, lands, land reform and resettlement minister, announcing a 200,000-tonne purchase from South Africa this week - to be distributed by the authorities.
Government promises, however, mean little to the people of Nyandeni. "It can carry on not for a long time," Mr Mathe said. "As I look at it now, if this situation continues about at the end of the coming month, we will be in real crisis. "We may be seeing some people dying of hunger and starvation." sberger@thenational.ae
