FILE PHOTO: A worker arranges bread for sale inside a supermarket in Zimbabwe's capital Harare March 26, 2009. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo/File Photo HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe could run out of bread in a week after flour stocks dwindled due to the country’s failure to pay for imported wheat, according to a confidential letter written to bakers by the country’s grain millers’ group on Monday. The southern African nation is in the grip of a severe shortage of U.S. dollars that has sapped supplies of fuel and drugs, as President Emmerson Mnangagwa struggles to live up to pre-election promises to quickly revive the troubled economy. Zimbabwe imports wheat, which it blends with its local crop to make flour for bread, the country’s second major staple after maize meal. The Grain Millers Association (GMAZ) general manager Lynette Veremu wrote to the National Bakers Association of Zimbabwe (NBAZ) to tell them the country not pay for 55,000 tonnes of wheat in bonded warehouses in Mozambique and Harare. “We regret to advise that the current stocks for foreign wheat for bread flour have depleted to 5,800 tonnes and ... we are left with less than eight days of national bread flour supplies,” the letter said. GMAZ spokesman Garikai Chaunza confirmed the letter, saying “this is the situation we are faced with”. Ngoni Mazango, the president of the bakers’ group, was not immediately available to comment. The central bank lists wheat among priority imports like fuel and drugs, but has struggled to pay suppliers in the past. GMAZ said in December it owed foreign suppliers $80 million for past wheat imports. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya did not answer calls to his mobile phone. Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Jan Harvey
A confidential letter from Zimbabwe’s grain millers has said the country could run out of white bread in less than eight days because a shortage of US dollars meant it had not been able to pay for imported wheat. The letter from the Grain Millers Association to the National Bakers Association of Zimbabwe said bread flour supplies were enough for a week. Imported wheat is mixed with domestic wheat to make bread flour. The country’s central bank has labelled wheat as a priority import alongside drugs and fuel, supplies of which have also been hit by the dollar shortage.