Harare / ZW. (beu) One of Zimbabwe´s main bakeries – Lobels Bread – has sent hundreds of workers on forced leave and has exhausted its reserve stock of flour, a company executive is cited as saying: «Flour availability has deteriorated and this has forced us to use our strategic stocks since May. Now we are only left with two days´ supply», the executive told the official Herald daily: «We have used all the 4.000 tons of flour that we had as reserve stock».
Security Minister Didymus Mutasa admitted the country is living from hand to mouth as far as wheat stocks are concerned because government does not have enough hard currency to pay for the release of 36.000 tons of wheat stockpiled in neighbouring Mozambique.
Lobels Bread says the company had been forced to cut back on production. The company is now baking just 40.000 loaves a day, down from around 200.000 three months ago. It has also closed down its factory in the second large city of Bulawayo, and sent 1.500 workers in Harare on forced leave.
Although flour shortages are the main problem, bakers have also complained about the price President Robert Mugabe´s government is forcing them to sell bread. In June bread prices were slashed to 22.000 ZWD a loaf from 45.000 ZWD, although later raised to 30.000 ZWD. The Bakers Association of Zimbabwe says it costs more than 55.000 ZWD to make a single loaf. The association is pushing for a selling price of 73.000 ZWD a loaf, the official Herald reports.
Addition: (07.09. / beu) «Second Zimbabwe bakery says it is about to run out of flour» we read today about Zimbabwean «Baker´s Inn» chain. Now the chain has to send more than 800 workers countrywide on forced leave. We are sure there are much more bakeries which need flour and other ingredients to nourish the people in Zimbabwe. According to the United Nation´s World Food Programme more than four million Zimbabweans, or around a third of the population, are in need of food aid today.
