Villagers in Gutu communal lands in Masvingo province have slammed President Robert Mugabe for donating cassava and bananas at a time when most of them have run out of the staple food – maize meal – due to a crippling drought.
President Mugabe made the donations at a rally at Chamisa Primary School in Gutu shortly after paying his condolences to the late Chief Gutu Amos Tasirai Masanganise, who died three years ago.
Villagers, who spoke to Studio 7, said the donation was a mockery them as they don’t eat cassava while bananas are not associated with ending hunger.
One of the villagers, who only wanted to be identified as Gondodza, said people President Mugabe should not have donated such items as people in the region eat traditional grains and not cassava.
FILE: People prepare food made from cassava flour in a market in Nigeria.
“Cassava is alien to us and we don’t even know how to prepare or cook it. We though that he was going to bring us the usual maize but he shocked us with cassava and to us it ended up as a mockery.”
Indications are that the president sourced the cassava and bananas from the west African island of Papa New Guinea. This could neither be confirmed nor denied by presidential spokesperson George Charamba, who was not reachable for comment on the donation and the source of the cassava and bananas.
Another villager, Timothy Mavhudzi, said the donation was a sign of desperate measures by Mr. Mugabe to please hungry Zimbabweans.
“To me these are very desperate measures, bananas cannot end hunger, to me its shows the president is getting out of his senses. How can he bring something that is not our staple food? He should have brought maize not cassava a donation from some West African country.”
Villager Timothy Muranganwa concurred, adding the president’s donation was an insult to the Gutu community.
“We were very surprised to see the president brining cassava and bananas, it was funny and an insult to us, and how could he bring such things when he knows our staple food is maize. Maybe because of his age he has forgotten that our main food is sadza.”
Other villagers said they were shocked to learn that the president came to Gutu to pay his condolences to a person who died several years ago.
Speaking to the villagers, Mr. Mugabe took a swipe at war veterans, who are spear-heading a campaign to block his wife, Grace, from succeeding him.-VOA
