Swazi transporters gear up for food relief programme

JAMES HALL MBABANE – Swaziland’s road and rail transporters are gearing up to perform what may be their most important mission: delivering emergency food relief following what is expected to be a fifth year of inadequate harvests. “Swaziland experienced erratic rainfall again this year. Chronic food shortages will continue for people,” said a new report from the United Nation’s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation. About a quarter of Swaziland’s one million population currently relies on some form of food aid. Drought, AIDS (which has reduced the number of able-bodied farmers) and land degradation will ensure that Swaziland’s cereal crop of 82 thousand metric tonnes, expected to be harvested next month, will remain the same as the 2005 harvest. This means the same number of hungry people through 2007. However, the infrastructure exists to ensure that no one starves. Matsapha-based road transport firms and Swaziland Railway will continue what has proved to be a smooth-running delivery system to humanitarian organisations working in the affected south and eastern parts of the country. “Chronic food underproduction remains a concern, but not famine. The delivery system is good, and it is free of the corruption you find in other countries,” said food aid worker Samuel Dlamini.