Published by the government of Zimbabwe
12 December 2005
editorial
Harare — ZIMBABWE has been short of sugar for many months despite producing enough for local consumption and some modest exports simply because so much is smuggled into Mozambique.
Even now, with exchange rates adjusted to market-related levels, sugar still costs more than twice as much in Mozambique as it does in Zimbabwe, making it very tempting for smugglers.
Now maize-meal has been brought into the smuggling rings built up along the Mozambican border near Mutare, again because this costs more than twice as much in Mozambique as it does in Zimbabwe.
The net result is that more than $1 billion worth of processed sugar and maize moves east across the border each week through just one well-used crossing point.
Both sugar and maize-meal, as a result, can be in short supply in Zimbabwe, although strenuous recent efforts by the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) and the millers do mean that maize-meal shortages are not critical.
But what it also means, now that Zimbabwe has exhausted the drought-hit 2005 harvest, is that this country has to use its scarce foreign currency to import maize not just for Zimbabwe, but also for a decent chunk of Mozambique.
The long-term solution to the problem is simple.
Zimbabwean farmers simply have to produce enough sugar and maize to supply all this country's needs and have a decent surplus for export.
It is useful to know that in Mozambique there is a market for processed Zimbabwean foods and it should not be difficult for the foreign trade diplomats to negotiate a simple trade agreement, if the present ones do not fit the case, to allow such exports.
This means the export earnings will be made by reputable companies who have to sell their foreign currency through the legal system, rather than by smugglers buying trinkets and fuelling the black market.
It is much cheaper to truck goods legally across a border, rather than hire porters to carry them through a minefield, so the smugglers will be put out of business by legal business.
In the short term, better enforcement of the law is needed.
It is difficult to believe that 200 people a day can cross through a fairly short stretch of border without anyone seeing them or doing much to stop them.
It does not require 100 percent effectiveness to stop smuggling.
Catching one load in three, looking at the sums earned, should be enough to bankrupt the smuggling rings.
And that should be possible for law enforcement agencies to achieve.
It is wrong that most Zimbabweans go without sugar and cannot always buy maize meal just so that a few can earn large sums running smuggling rings.
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