INGC director Paulo Zucula is cited in Friday's issue of the daily paper 'Noticias' as saying that this is a product recently delivered by the World Food Programme (WFP) to assist the victims of floods in the central region of Mozambique, namely in the Zambezia, Manica, Sofala, and Tete provinces.
'We have given orders to destroy that product or to give it to the pigs. We are not going to give this product to people, because it is rotten and we cannot say exactly what did they do to this product there in the field. On the other hand, we have started replacing stocks, with the support of the WFP', he said.
For his part, INGC representative in Zambezia Joao Zamissa said that health authorities in that province are currently working to incinerate those product as soon as possible because it has been proved to be prejudicial to the public health.
'Actually, we have received an order from the IGNC central authorities, determining the destruction of the maize meal. Because all precaution is not enough, the health sector is working to incinerate all the unfit maize meal because, otherwise, there may be some deviation and it may be taken for human consumption', he said, explaining that the entire operation is costed at about two million meticais (80,000 US dollars).
This product was to assist about 11,300 people, victims of floods this year in the Zambezi Valley, for the entire month of August.
Zucula said that local business people have been mobilized and they are working hard to replace the necessary stocks to assist those people and, so far, there has been no complaint of hunger among the affected people.
The product now going for destruction had been donated by the WFP to INGC, but it was found to be already unfit for human consumption.
SOURCE: AIM
