Saturday, February 6, 2016

Zimbabwe to Declare Emergency Over Food Shortages

Zimbabwe’s government plans to declare a national emergency over food shortages as the United Nations warned the situation is worsening at an “alarming” pace and price-spikes for basic commodities are looming.

“We are going to announce to the world the hunger we’re facing,” Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa told lawmakers in the capital, Harare, on Thursday. “We have drought in this country and it is a pending disaster,” he said. President Robert Mugabe will make the announcement in days, he said.

About 1.5 million of Zimbabwe’s 12 million people currently need emergency food assistance, and that number may triple this year, said Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira on Feb. 1.

“The situation is deteriorating at an alarming rate," Eddie Rowe, an official with the UN’s World Food Program, said in Harare on Feb. 2.

When you see the word "shortages," you know there are price controls.

Zimbabwe is a perfect example of a country where central planning is on steroids, There needs to be a Zimbabwean Economic Miracle, similar to the German Economic Miracle that followed after World War 2.

-RW


(via Bloomberg)

5 comments:

  1. In 1922, faced with the decision to join the Union of South Africa as a fifth province or accept nearly full internal autonomy, the electorate cast its vote against South African integration.[6][7][8]

    In view of the outcome of the referendum, the territory was annexed by the United Kingdom on 12 September 1923.[9][10][11][12] Shortly after annexation, on 1 October 1923, the first constitution for the new Colony of Southern Rhodesia came into force.[11][13] Under this constitution, Southern Rhodesia was given the right to elect its own thirty-member legislature, premier, and cabinet—although the British Crown retained a formal veto over measures affecting natives and dominated foreign policy.[14][15][16] White residents, meanwhile, provided most of the colony's administrative, industrial, scientific, and farming skills in addition to owning half the land.[17] They also established a relatively balanced economy, transforming what was once a primary producer dependent on backwoods farming into an industrial giant which spawned a strong manufacturing sector, iron and steel industries, and modern mining ventures. These economic successes owed little to foreign aid.[3][18]

    The Rhodesian authorities resisted the temptation to nationalise major enterprises without paying proper compensation, consistently refused to radically alleviate unemployment, and shied from filling civil service posts with partisan appointees. By colonial standards, public services were well-organised and praised for their efficiency.[3]


    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodesia

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  2. More than 4,000 white farmers lost their land after Mr Mugabe lost a referendum to the new Movement for Democratic Change party and, in a bid to regain popularity, authorised land grabs by disaffected war veterans.

    Today, fewer than 300 white farmers remain on portions of their original land holdings in Zimbabwe and many of the seized farms lie fallow, meaning the former Breadbasket of Africa has to import food to feed its population.

    Among remaining farmers who have been recommended for a reprieve of Mr Mugabe’s edict that whites can no longer own land in Zimbabwe is Elizabeth Mitchell, a poultry farmer who produces 100,000 day-old chicks each week. so once again we see that necessity (a food shortage) breeds invention (rethinking populist land grabs), but lest anyone should believe that Mugabe has done a complete 180, we'll close with the following advice given to supporters at a recent Patriotic Front rally:

    "Don't be too kind to white farmers. They can own industries and companies, or stay in apartments in our towns but they cannot own land. They must leave the land to blacks.”


    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-23/15-years-after-land-grabs-mugabe-invites-white-farmers-back-zimbabwe

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  3. i don't think Mugabe is going to be embracing private property rights and free market capitalism. It's amazing Zimbabweans haven't killed the man.

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    Replies
    1. It's both amazing and predictable how the "progressives", who allegedly live and bleed for the minorities and the very poor, are completely silent on the horrors of socialism afflicting Africa. One should NEVER take a "progressive" seriously.

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    2. "It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." ~ GK Chesterton

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