THE government has tasked traditional leaders to spearhead the distribution of food aid in rural areas, alleviating fears that the program could be influenced by political bias.
Zimbabwe is currently reeling from the El Niño induced drought.
With an estimated nine million people facing food insecurity, the government has appealed for financial aid from humanitarian organizations.
Responding to questions in the National Assembly, Minister of Public Service and Social Welfare July Moyo said the traditional leaders had been chosen for their apolitical stance.
"In doing so, we adhere to UN principles and that is why in our programming, we have said for food, we are going to use the traditional leadership that we have in this country. My colleague, the Minister of Agriculture has alluded to the fact that we have 35 000 plans and vigilantes.
"When we did our rapid assessment which ended on the 15th of April, we used this traditional leadership. There were others including those who were elected like ourselves because we are concerned that our people should have sustenance and food.
"We are concerned to make sure that those who deserve should be there, but the selection process is led by traditional leadership. The reason why we are choosing traditional leadership is because they are apolitical.
"This is because of the reason that they are traditional and they look after the whole village and the UN works with us. When we did lean period January to March, we allocated the UN system to give food allocations to four of our 60 districts and we were giving in 56 districts," said Moyo.
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There were fears that the Zanu PF-led government would utilize the food aid to settle political scores by denying opposition supporters.
Moyo said the beneficiaries of the food aid had been identified by the traditional leaders.
"We jointly programmed the issue of the selection process and we went and validated what they were doing. This is because we also want them to follow our traditional leadership as they select the beneficiaries. We asked them to come and examine and work with us where we were delivering this food.
"So that validation has given us confidence that working together with UN Agencies in Zimbabwe, and any UN Agency that might want to come and see what we are doing, that we can as Zimbabweans and with the UN system, acquit ourselves that we are giving food to deserving households and deserving individuals," he said.
