Crickets Shameful Test
'We'll die soon, we're too tired to queue for bread'

1st January 2003

Harare - From the wide city street running close to the pitch where England is due to meet Zimbabwe for a World Cup cricket match in six weeks, the only sound yesterday was the swish of water flicking on to the well-tended field. The fuel crisis has stopped the traffic along the avenue south of the pitch at the Dutch-gabled Harare Sports Club and just round the corner from President Robert Mugabe's state mansion. Mr Mugabe, the patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, sees nothing of the fuel shortage. Naturally, he does not queue for food and nor will the international cricketers due to play in Harare and the second city, Bulawayo. To the thin men and women walking to and from work or between queues, cricket means little. "I don't know cricket," said a man who had just come off a 12-hour shift with a Harare security company. "I just want to go to a place far from here where there is cheaper food. My wife waited for six hours for bread yesterday. She had the baby with her and she got one loaf."

Zimbabwe is in the grip of its worst food and economic crisis, caused by Mr Mugabe's chaotic and often violent seizures of 90 per cent of white-owned farms, which for decades produced most of the agricultural output and exports. A man who survives on the occasional job as a packer at a city centre warehouse said his mother was feeding beer to his younger siblings. Sorghum-based chibuku, known as "scud" on the streets, sells for less than 22p a litre and is the cheapest source of protein. "My mother boils it to get rid of the alcohol and feeds it to the kids with white cabbage," he said. The two major supermarket chains have stopped stocking beef as government price controls forced them to sell at below cost. A retail executive said: "We had six packs of meat left on Christmas Eve at one store. Inspectors came in and charged us - then asked if they could buy the meat at the price we were selling it at. It's crazy."

Yesterday more price controls were imposed on pork, toothpaste, rice and baby food among many other products. "We will die soon," said a young woman queueing for bread. "We are too tired to queue. I have to walk a long way to get here early." She can afford to buy bread only at the controlled price of 4p and that means being in the queue by 6.30am. Next month, for the first time in Zimbabwe's history, the World Food Programme will start feeding children under six in Harare in addition to nearly three million in rural areas. Life grows harder by the day for the people of Zimbabwe. Even those with money cannot find what they want. It will be different, of course, for the World Cup cricketers in their five-star accommodation. Steaks will be served with chilled drinks and South African wine. From their air-conditioned bus along the route to the luxurious sports club, they will see no fuel queues.

The Daily Telegraph (UK)