Careless food storage sidelines Swaziland’s hungry | WPN World People News

Mounds of food aid intended for Swaziland’s food insecure were recently found rotting in the government’s main storage warehouses at the Matsapha Industrial Estate, about 25km east of the capital, Mbabane.

Smallholder farmers from Swaziland’s eastern Lubombo District. The country suffers from persistent food insecurity and more than 100,000 people are currently estimated to be food insecure.

According to a March 2013 briefing by the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), “Approximately 116,000 persons are currently estimated to be food insecure, up 31 percent from the previous year.”

The spoiled food was discovered earlier this month by parliamentarian Eric Matsebula after his constituents in rural Mayiwane, in the Hhohho Region, some 60km north of Mbabane, complained they were going hungry

According to the Times of Swaziland, Matsebula told parliament: “I went to the warehouse, and the food is rotting, and even the fertilizer has been spoilt.”

The spoiled food included 15,000kg of the staple maize meal, 25,000kg of beans and 600 cartons of vegetable oil.

The revelations come several months after it was discovered the cash-strapped administration of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, sold maize donated by the Japanese government for US$3 million and deposited the money in the Central Bank of Swaziland. The proceeds from the sale were then used by government officials for other expenditures.

Food-aid dependent

Swaziland has been dependent on food assistance, to varying degrees, for the past two decades. In 2007, more than half of the country’s 1.1 million people required food aid. The reliance on rain-fed agriculture, archaic farming methods, as well as an absence of land reform, the impact of HIV and AIDS and rising input and fuel costs, have all contributed to the country’s persistent food insecurity.

The March GIEWS briefing said, “The import requirement for maize in the current 2012/13 marketing year (May/April) is estimated at 75,000 tons, moderately higher than the previous year, to compensate for the reduced 2012 domestic output.”

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Swaziland provides food assistance at over 1,500 neighbourhood care points, more than 200 secondary schools and 12 health facilities. In 2012, the WFP supply chain reached 327,000 people.

Mounds of food aid intended for Swaziland’s food insecure were recently found rotting in the government’s main storage warehouses at the Matsapha Industrial Estate, about 25km east of the capital, Mbabane.

According to a March 2013 briefing by the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), “Approximately 116,000 persons are currently estimated to be food insecure, up 31 percent from the previous year.”

The spoiled food was discovered earlier this month by parliamentarian Eric Matsebula after his constituents in rural Mayiwane, in the Hhohho Region, some 60km north of Mbabane, complained they were going hungry

According to the Times of Swaziland, Matsebula told parliament: “I went to the warehouse, and the food is rotting, and even the fertilizer has been spoilt.”

The spoiled food included 15,000kg of the staple maize meal, 25,000kg of beans and 600 cartons of vegetable oil.

The revelations come several months after it was discovered the cash-strapped administration of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, sold maize donated by the Japanese government for US$3 million and deposited the money in the Central Bank of Swaziland. The proceeds from the sale were then used by government officials for other expenditures.

Food-aid dependent

Swaziland has been dependent on food assistance, to varying degrees, for the past two decades. In 2007, more than half of the country’s 1.1 million people required food aid. The reliance on rain-fed agriculture, archaic farming methods, as well as an absence of land reform, the impact of HIV and AIDS and rising input and fuel costs, have all contributed to the country’s persistent food insecurity.

The March GIEWS briefing said, “The import requirement for maize in the current 2012/13 marketing year (May/April) is estimated at 75,000 tons, moderately higher than the previous year, to compensate for the reduced 2012 domestic output.”

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Swaziland provides food assistance at over 1,500 neighbourhood care points, more than 200 secondary schools and 12 health facilities. In 2012, the WFP supply chain reached 327,000 people.

Aaron Simelane, a Swaziland-based political commentator, told IRIN, “MPs are considered community development agents by the people who vote… Swazis want their MPs to bring roads, jobs and aid to their communities, but MPs have no power to do any of these things. [The] cabinet has this power.

“The people do not know this, and when things aren’t done they blame MPs, who promise to deliver this and that to get elected. By withholding food aid, [the] cabinet is teaching MPs a lesson about power.”

Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku, whose office is responsible for the government’s food aid distribution, told MPs that he had been in hospital for the past two months and was not “privy to what has been going on down there” in Matsapha, the Times of Swaziland reported.

Source: IRIN