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Wallace Ruzvidzo Herald Reporter
Zanu-PF has donated 20 tonnes of flour to its members of the House of Assembly to enable them to start small bakeries in their respective constituencies after completing breadmaking courses conducted at the party headquarters two weeks ago.

The donation is meant to cushion communities from high bread prices.

In an interview after a caucus meeting of the parliamentarians in Harare on Wednesday, Zanu-PF Chief Whip Cde Pupurai Togarepi said Zanu-PF national chairperson Cde Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri gave the flour to Members of Parliament to facilitate ward-based bakeries so that communities will produce their own bread at affordable prices.

“MPs were advised to launch projects that will help shield communities from high prices of basic commodities and the national chairperson of the party supported members with flour to start ward-based bakeries for communities to produce their own reasonably priced bread,” he said.

“Twenty tonnes of flour were given to MPs for the training programme and more is available for the actual ward-based bakeries.”

Cde Togarepi revealed that some of the critical issues discussed at the caucus included capacity building for legislators and efforts being made by Government to address energy shortages, highlighting that Government was doing its best to ensure that power and fuel were accessible.

“We discussed various issues of capacity building for MPs and Government is working towards ensuring that power and fuels are available,” he said.

Cde Togarepi said foreign currency was the main challenge, but Government was making efforts to deal with money owed to regional suppliers as selected hotels in resort areas will soon start paying electricity bills in foreign currency, as part of a raft of measures to overcome energy problems being faced by the country.

“The shortage of foreign currency is the main challenge, but members were pleased to hear the efforts by Government to deal with money owed to regional suppliers and members pledged to pay the bills on time to Zesa so that the same can be paid to our regional suppliers,” he said.

Following Government’s approval of a duty waiver on solar equipment, it was agreed that solar energy should be pursued with vigour to supplement present energy sources.