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The Covid-19-induced national 21-day lockdown period should be a time for coming together as Zimbabweans to avert disaster and to nation build.
Government, business, the media fraternity as well as traditional and religious leaders have been instrumental in bringing citizens together for common good.

However, a small section of society sees opportunity in the pain of others.

As we reported yesterday, the black market for subsidised roller meal is thriving during the lockdown period due to shortages of the staple commodity.

As a result, citizens have resorted to spending long hours in queues where they fail to maintain social distancing meant to curb the spread of Covid-19, due to chaos fuelled by desperation and corruption.

Some residents who spoke to Chronicle said they have to leave their homes as early as 4AM to join the mealie-meal queues but even then, being an early bird does not guarantee getting mealie-meal.

Opportunists have taken advantage of the shortages and lack of supervision on the part of policy makers to divert the subsidised roller meal to the black market.

Desperate families struggling to leave their homes as they risk falling foul of national lockdown regulations, are then forced to purchase mealie-meal on the black market where it is readily available as long as one has cash.

Depending on the area, some unscrupulous dealers are selling the subsidised mealie-meal, whose price is officially pegged at $70 a 10kg bag for $170 or R100.

Bulawayo residents who spoke to our news crew said the situation is worsened by mini-cartels operating in various suburbs getting mealie-meal at the expense of those in need.

Shop-owners, local councillors and unscrupulous police officers controlling queues are also said to be used as a conduit to divert the mealie-meal to the black market.

Some shops, albeit selling at the regulated price, are demanding that residents pay for the product in cash only even though it is scarce as banks are closed to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

Such profiteering in the face of a State of National Disaster must be dealt with swiftly and severely by the relevant arms of Government.

Criminals cheating fellow Zimbabweans during such a national crisis period have no conscience at all.

They deserve to spend the lockdown period under the safe guard of the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services. They must rot in jail.

The distribution of Government’s subsidised mealie-meal has been marred by corruption for some time and recently a Silo Food Industries employee from

Bulawayo was arrested for diverting the product to the black market.

The case against Buhle Dube (37) of Kensington is still before the courts and she is jointly charged with Stanley Chimatira and Samkeliso Nyathi, who are former employees at Silo Food Industries and are still at large.

We urge Government to move in, and move in fast, in order to protect the generality of Zimbabweans, especially the food insecure, from criminals who do not mind seeing their own people starving to death.

The mealie-meal subsidy was a noble initiative by a caring Government but the long arm of the law is needed in nipping abuse in the bud.