President Mugabe’s wife has declared that non-governmental organisations are no longer welcome in Zimbabwe since the country has enjoyed a “bumper harvest” and will not need food aid.
Grace Mugabe also claimed that NGOs were interfering in the country’s turbulent politics and suggested that they should be “vetted”.
“We don’t need them any more because they always want to come here and disturb our politics,” she told an audience at a rally in Marondera, 50 miles east of Harare. “We are having a bumper harvest this year so there is no need for NGOs any more.”
Mrs Mugabe’s claims about the harvest were largely borne out by the facts. The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation said recent good rainfall meant that Zimbabwe’s maize crop, harvested over the past two months, was better than previous years but had still been diminished by an outbreak of parasitic armyworm and flooding.
However, aid agencies said that the number of people who were short of food had increased significantly this year because of flooding, drought and the knock-on effect of last year’s poor harvest.
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According to the World Food Programme, 4.1 million people in Zimbabwe, almost half of its rural population, have struggled to find enough food this year. The UN body estimates that 27 per cent of children in the country are stunted because of malnutrition.
Mrs Mugabe’s claims that NGOs were interfering in politics echoed those made by her husband in the run-up to elections. Mr Mugabe has previously threatened to deregister NGOs, suggesting that they were working with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, an umbrella organisation representing about 80 civil society groups, accused Mrs Mugabe of hypocrisy and said that the government routinely appealed to NGOs for help in tackling hunger and sickness.
“The presence of the NGOs providing food has been necessitated by the government’s incompetence and failure to feed the starving communities. Most NGOs are responding directly to the mismanagement and failure by the government to provide those services,” Memory Kadau, the coalition director, told South Africa’s News 24. “It is public record that Zimbabwe requested assistance from the international community to respond to the El Niño-induced drought.”
Mrs Mugabe, 51, who is 42 years her husband’s junior, joined him in Marondera on Friday for the first of ten rallies across the country as Zanu-PF steps up its campaign before elections next year. She has become increasingly outspoken since being elected to run Zanu-PF’s women’s league and, some believe, has ambitions to inherit her husband’s job.
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She is also thought to be expanding her business ventures to support herself and the couple’s three children amid fears that the president could soon succumb to illness.