Dear United Nations

“Our immediate priority as government is to guarantee food security by ensuring that all the vulnerable households throughout the country have food”, President Emmerson Mnangagwa told diplomats accredited to Zimbabwe early February 2020.

However, his members of parliament and officials are on record denying members of the opposition food.

Mnangagwa has been silent when Zanu PF, including Parliamentarians, have been seen on camera openly saying that supporters of the opposition will not be given food assistance. Not a single one of those wayward officials has been reprimanded.

A recent report by the Movement for Democratic Change following an assessment visit indicated that politicisation of aid and farming inputs has seen known MDC supporters who have critical needs being deprived.

The report went further to say some of the community members reported that government officials who include Agriculture Minister Perence Shiri had visited communities and politicised the crisis by threatening MDC supporters and denigrating their leader Nelson Chamisa.

In many of the incidents, opposition suppporters are then denied food and farm input assistance.

There has been a lot of similar cases even before Mnangagwa took over from late President Robert Mugabe.

The United Nations and the Diplomatic community must ask Mnangagwa what guarantees there are that food assistance will not be politicised when it is already being politicised and Mnangagwa has not lifted a finger to reprimand his wayward officials.

Food donors must be allowed to distribute food aid in the presence of representatives of all political parties as Zanu PF governments are hypocritical and always try to pull the wool over the eyes of the international community.

Until Mnangagwa is heard reprimanding his wayward officials, his word should never be trusted.

Kennedy Kaitano