Close to seven million people are in urgent need of food assistance, Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube has revealed.
Ncube revealed while speaking at the Alpha Media Holdings (AMH)’s In Conversation with Trevor event on Wednesday. Said Ncube:
The biggest issue on social safety nets is food … (and) just to make sure people do not go hungry … we have spent a bit of time making sure that we have put in place a programme for delivering food.
So, every week in Cabinet, we will monitor what the deliveries are like province by province, district by district. And, this week, in my office, I have actually put in place some computer software which allows me to monitor the situation district by district through satellite, so I have got all the data.
The situation is pretty serious and we have about 6,7 million people around Zimbabwe who are vulnerable to hunger and climate change because the two have now communed.
Zimbabwe’s acute food shortages have been blamed on weather extremes, that is, the worst drought in decades, and the most devastating tropical cyclone on record, Tropical Idai, which ravaged Eastern Zimbabwe.