§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Government of Zimbabwe about its stockpiling of food in the run-up to national elections. [174777]
Mr. Gareth ThomasAlthough the Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) provides little information about the activities of the parastatal Grain Marketing Board (GMB), donors believe that current GMB stocks are less than 100 thousand metric tonnes (MT), compared with a national food requirement of up to 1.8 million MT. GMB will build up its stocks in coming months as the harvest comes in, which is appropriate. Donors are1520W in Chad, there are over 1.2 million internally displaced people in Darfur who are in a precarious situation likely to become worse with the onset of rains later this month.
The UK is heavily engaged in the humanitarian response to this crisis. DFID is the second largest donor after the US and so far has committed over £16.5 million to agencies working in Darfur and Eastern Chad. A breakdown of these commitments is given below. In addition, DFID has seconded four humanitarian officers to support United Nations Office for the Co-Ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)'s response to the crisis in Darfur and are seconding an additional three for the UN Joint Logistics Centre. DFID is also paying for a despatch of non-food items (22,500 blankets and 15,000 plastic sheets) for distribution by humanitarian agencies.
particularly concerned about the dishonesty of the GoZ in declaring that the current harvest is in the order of 2.4 million MT and that Zimbabwe will be self-sufficient in food for the coming year, as confirmed by Robert Mugabe in a television interview this week.
The GoZ cancelled a Crop and Food Supply Assessment that was recently in progress jointly with the World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, which would have provided an independent figure. Other recent studies suggest the actual harvest to be at or below 1.2 million MT. Donors are concerned that the GoZ is trying to control food supply in the country in the run-up to parliamentary elections next year, pretending that land reform has 1521W been successful. Apart from deceiving its population, the GoZ is putting many of them at great risk of hunger later in the year, while probably needing to divert a substantial amount of its scarce foreign exchange to import grains.