Zimbabweans grapple with starvation amid drought

By Jeffrey Moyo

EPWORTH, Zimbabwe (AA) - Dakarai Muzvidziwa, 53, is not sure when his family will be able to have their next meal.

He is part of the 2.5 million people in Zimbabwe who are facing starvation as drought, a cyclone and hyperinflation have sky-rocketed the price of basic food.

“I have not been able to get a proper job since 2016 and my wife has been doing part-time laundry work for other people in neighboring areas,” Muzvidziwa told Anadolu Agency.

The family lives in Epworth, a slum settlement south-east of Harare, the Zimbabwean capital.

Muzvidziwa said he had turned to toiling on the small urban fields, planting maize to supplement their food, but this year he has labored in vain amidst a drought that has hit Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabwean government recently declared the drought a national disaster as it pleads for aid from the international community, despite having invested billions of American dollars in a scheme aimed at ensuring food self-sufficiency.

Since the ouster of former President Robert Mugabe in November 2017, the country is grappling with debilitating poverty.

“Food has become extremely expensive and as I speak to you my brother we have run out of food; we don’t know what would be our next meal,” added Muzvidziwa.

Two days ago, schools had closed and for Muzvidziwa this meant that all five of his school-going children would be home with him -- looking forward to be fed.

“We now eat once at supper time,” Muzvidziwa’s 13-year old girl told Anadolu Agency.

In the vicinity of the Muzvidziwa family’s slum, a woman in her thirties shouted at her children accusing them of overeating and finishing the food leftovers from last night’s meal which she said she had reserved for the following day.

“She is a single mother and she makes sure to feed her children,” Muzvidziwa said.

Her three little children lingered outside their shack looking stunted -- a clear sign that hunger has not spared them either.

- Changing times

Food shortages are also affecting people in Westlea suburb, about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) west of the capital. Times for many like 41-year-old Hillary Mupepiwa have changed.

“With my family, we can no longer afford the three meals we used to have because food is now very expensive. I work as a till operator in a supermarket in town, but I earn very little and although food prices have not stopped going up, I still earn an unadjusted wage,” Mupepiwa, who said he has three children living with him and his wife, told Anadolu Agency.

“My wife and I now have to eat once in the evenings and only our kids get to eat the very little that my wife leaves out from our limited supper every day,” said Mupepiwa.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) made a plea for $331 million in a bid to rescue the country from a debilitating drought in which more than a third of the population is in need of food aid.

Zimbabwe was once the bread basket of southern Africa, but over the past two decades agriculture harvests have suffered and power cuts are rampant.

In June this year, Zimbabwe’s annual inflation surged 176%, barely 29 months after the country's consumer prices started rising again following years of deflation.

Economists predict inflation would rise even further.

"The annual inflation may end conservatively at between 200 and 300%," said Prosper Chitambara, a senior economist.

- Hyperinflation

Yet, Zimbabwe is no stranger to hyperinflation.

In 2008, inflation in the southern African nation peaked at 500 billion% sparking food deficits as prices shot beyond the reach of many, prompting the government to abandon the Zimbabwe dollar.

But two months ago, the government announced the return of the dreaded local currency and said foreign ones -- such as the U.S. dollar and South African rand that had become the country’s trading currencies over the past decade – would cease to be accepted as legal tender.

Now, a quasi-currency known as bond notes, which cannot be traded outside the country, and their electronic equivalent, the RTGS dollar, have become the country’s currency, termed the Zimbabwe dollar.

The currency has not helped to ease the hyperinflation and as a result food deficits have become a daily struggle for Zimbabweans to contend with.

"The reintroduction of the local currency has helped to add pressure on everyone because there is no production. You don't introduce a currency when there is no production because that on its own fuels inflation, and we are now in hyperinflation technically," said Chitambara.

Kipson Gundani, chief economist with the Zimbabwe Chamber of Commerce, has been quick to pin the blame on government.

“Allow me to be specific and say the levels of corruption in Zimbabwe are satanic; we have had many years of bad politics; thanks to our government, we have been in a consistent state of political and economic decay,” Gundani said.

In order to emerge out of the food crisis that Zimbabwe faces, development experts like Lexicon Guni say the government should focus on basics before it turns to please political leaders with luxuries.

“People need water; people need electricity; people need a stable currency that keeps industries running and subsequently a functioning economy and it’s just a matter of making right decisions on the part of our leaders and things can start moving all over again,” Guni said.