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SGR supplies should really help the needy
2008-03-31 10:01:15
By Editor
We feel obliged, so soon after we last did so, to add our voice to appeals to the government to keep its word and make sure that the promised relief food supplies meant for the thousands of Tanzanians facing acute food shortages do not end up in the wrong hands - or mouths.
Our call comes only days after the government reported that the lives of 184,369 people in 17 districts in Arusha, Lindi, Morogoro, Mwanza and Shinyanga regions are in danger following acute drought-induced food shortages.
The report was just another repeat of terribly sad news for the predominantly agricultural nation that we are.
Luckily, as often happens during especially lean years, the government announced that it has enough supplies in its strategic grain reserve (SGR) to safely make available the 4,288 tonnes of emergency food assistance the five districts need to ward off starvation.
As part of its strategy to deal with the problem, the government has granted businesspeople permission to distribute SGR maize on condition that the needy people targeted get supplies at no more than 50/- a kilogramme.
This was, again, the reiteration of a condition given several times in the past when the weather protested and food supplies lay dangerously low.
But the government has sworn to outwit all crafty traders out to cash in on the situation by inflating the price of the subsidised maize.
It says anyone being so foolhardy as to dare play funny games with the emergency food supplies will end up in boiling-hot soup.
We hear a water-tight mechanism to monitor and control the market price of the maize has been devised and its implementation will involve local government officials at the ward and village level.
That sounds wonderful but there is a catch even there because several previous experiments that were similarly well-intentioned have flopped, many sabotaged by some of the very people entrusted with their implementation.
Of course, times have changed much since the years when a corrupt official here and an embezzler of public funds there could go about their evil ways with impunity.
However, adversity usually produces unique breeds of vicious hearts and callous minds able to come up with deadly schemes with the least of remorse.
That is why we think there is still much the government should do to make sure that the seriousness with which it is viewing the acute scarcity of food in the 17 districts does not come to nought.
There was consolation in Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives minister Peter Msolla`s recent remarks in Dar es Salaam, particularly when he said the SGR had 122,501,917 tonnes of maize and 7,020,951 of millet.
But there is more to rescuing a starving people than merely giving them subsidised maize and millet.
As we have said, there are always elements with a pathological propensity to turn the misfortunes of others into their own gain.
We hope the proverbial long arm of the law will be used to remind the evil-minded that crime does not pay.
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