Bishop slams Zimbabwe food claims

The government claims Zimbabwe will not need food aid

One of Zimbabwe's top churchmen has criticised the government for refusing international food aid, saying the country will be left hungry.

Zimbabwe ordered UN crop assessors to stop their work last week, and forecast a bumper harvest.

Labour Minister Paul Mangwana told the country's official news agency: "We have enough for local consumption."

But the Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo said the government was "not telling the truth", and much land lay unfarmed.

Archbishop Pius Ncube told the BBC's Network Africa programme: "There's so much land lying fallow, some of the best farms are not even cultivated."

They want to use food as a political weapon as they have done in the past. Archbishop Pius Ncube

He said the government had failed to distribute seed and fertiliser, and that the rains had come two months late in some parts.

"So I fear - for instance in western Zimbabwe - many people will have enough food for three or four months, after which they will need food aid."

A former food exporter, Zimbabwe has relied on food aid since it began controversial land reform seizures in 2000.

But Agriculture Minister Joseph Made said maize production was expected to reach nearly 2.5m tonnes, more than double the total for each of the previous two years.

He said the government's land redistribution programme was responsible for the improvement.

But aid agencies estimate that 5.5m Zimbabweans - almost half in urban areas - will require emergency food aid this year.

On Thursday the AFP news agency said it had seen a report by one of the UN's top officials in Zimbabwe, which said that if Zimbabwe was to appeal for food aid later in the year, the international community would not be able to respond quickly enough.

Opposition appeal

The agriculture spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Renson Gasela, has appealed to foreign donors to continue bringing in food - even without a government request.

The opposition has accused the government of only giving food aid to its supporters.

With parliamentary elections due next year, it says the government is preparing to do the same again.

Archbishop Ncube said: "They want to use food as a political weapon as they have done in the past.

"Once they put out the non-governmental organisations that have been feeding the people, then they'll have the whole field to themselves.

"Then they can punish those people who are supporting the opposition."