By Basildon Peta
Beer will be the latest in a string of commodities to disappear from Zimbabwe's supermarket shelves.
This is because of a critical shortage of a necessary ingredient - maize.
Already, sugar, salt, cooking oil, soap, margarine and bread can no longer be easily obtained.
6 million Zimbabweans will need food aid Beer drinkers in Zimbabwe would be shattered on learning that the commodity, which allows them to drown their sorrows in the midst of the worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, will no longer be obtainable.
Pearson Gowero, chief executive officer of Chibuku Breweries, the main beer brewer in Zimbabwe, said the shortage of beer in the coming weeks would be a result of the critical shortage of maize in Zimbabwe.
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Zimbabwe needs to import at least 700 000 tons of maize to compensate for shortages caused by a combination of drought and seizures of white farms by President Robert Mugabe's supporters.
The Grain Marketing Board, which controls national grain reserves, has reduced maize supplies to Chibuku Breweries, in favour of using the little remaining grain reserves for food production.
Gowero said his firm was trying to import maize directly from South Africa but this was proving difficult because of the crippling foreign exchange crisis in Zimbabwe.
The World Food Programme estimates that 6 million Zimbabweans will need food aid due to the crisis in the country.
Commonwealth secretary-general Don McKinnon was expected to lobby Commonwealth leaders attending the launch of the African Union in Durban to persuade Mugabe to end the crisis in his country.
Meanwhile, the main mental hospital in Zimbabwe is giving its patients cigarettes as sedatives after it ran out of essential drugs, a state newspaper reported on Sunday. - Sapa-AFP
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