No malnutrition deaths, insists Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s government today dismissed reports of dozens of deaths linked to malnutrition as lies peddled by detractors and insisted the nation has more food than it needs.

Health officials in Bulawayo, the nation’s second largest city, have reported at least 162 deaths related to malnutrition this year.

Information Minister Jonathan Moyo accused the regional council’s health director, Dr Zanele Hwalima, of ”doctoring lies” meant to cause alarm and despondency.

The Bulawayo council, which is controlled by the opposition, is the only local council in Zimbabwe that routinely compiles data on food shortages and malnutrition.

Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, was pluged into political and economic turmoil when President Robert Mugabe’s government began seizing thousands of white owned farms for redistribution to blacks in 2000. Inflation is running at 314%, the highest rate in the world.

The often-violent land reform programme, combined with erratic rains, have crippled the nation’s agriculture-based economy. The government argues redistribution is needed to correct colonial-era injustices and has not affected food production.

UN estimates put the expected total harvest this year at around one million tons of grain, about half the country’s needs.

Last year, nearly half of Zimbabwe’s 12.5 million people needed food aid. A UN-led assessment group estimates that as many as five million Zimbabweans will need help again before the next harvest in March.

Moyo suggested in an interview with the state Herald newspaper that even if there was malnutrition in Zimbabwe it wouldn’t amount to a serious health problem.

“Malnutrition is just … a case of not having a balanced diet. … People in the USA are fat because they eat too many burgers. That’s malnutrition,” Moyo said.

He disputed the low UN harvest forecast and said “There is no food crisis in Zimbabwe.”