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Lloyd Gumbo Harare Bureau
THE government has directed the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) to slash the price of maize from $23 per 50kg bag to $15 to enable the majority of people affected by the El Nino-induced drought this year to buy the staple grain.

The government, meanwhile, says it will continue to distribute maize for free to vulnerable families across the country. The country has stocks enough to feed the nation for the next three months, with more maize deliveries expected before the current reserves run out.

This was revealed by Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira in the National Assembly yesterday during a Questions Without Notice Session.

“We’re aware as government that the price of maize at the GMB was high at around $23 per bag. We’ve asked that the price be reduced, so we agreed in Cabinet yesterday that the price must come down to $15 per bag for households. That’s for households and not business,” said Mupfumira.

Earlier in the day, Mupfumira and her Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development counterpart, Joseph Made assured Zanu-PF Members of Parliament who attended a party caucus meeting at the Zanu-PF Headquarters in Harare that the government had put adequate mechanisms in place to ensure no one starves.

Zanu-PF Chief Whip, Cde Lovemore Matuke, said the two ministers assured them that the government was now seized with distributing the food to all the communities across the country.

Cde Matuke added: “They said they’re going to have committees at district level that are going to deal with distribution of food. The programme is ongoing. The MPs needed to be updated on the current situation so that they can take the same information to their constituencies.

“There’s a lot of maize which is coming from abroad to ensure that everybody will be able to receive adequate food.”

President Mugabe last month declared a state of disaster to allow for mobilisation of resources to mitigate the effects of drought – induced hunger facing the country. The government subsequently appealed for food assistance from both local and international partners to the tune of at least $1,5 billion to cater for about 3 million vulnerable people.