Fadzayi Mahere slams Mudenda’s “eat porridge” advice amid looming drought

Former opposition Member of Parliament Fadzayi Mahere has scoffed at recent remarks by National Assembly Speaker Jacob Mudenda, who urged Zimbabweans to cut back on the staple sadza/isitshwala and switch to porridge to conserve maize meal ahead of what he warned could be a devastating El Niño-induced drought.

Mudenda said some people could die of hunger if they were forced to rely entirely on government assistance.

He made the appeal on Friday while addressing legislators at a pre-budget seminar in Bulawayo, where he warned that the country must prepare for an approaching “super El Niño”.

His proposed solution was a return to eating habits he recalls from the 1957 drought, when families reduced their meals from three a day to two and increasingly relied on porridge instead of the traditional sadza/isitshwala.

“In 1957, 10 years after the 1947 drought, people began to change how they fed themselves. They reduced from three meals a day to two. I recall that I was a toddler then. Instead of cooking isitshwala/sadza, you cooked porridge,” he said.

“Yes, let everybody drink porridge. If you cook porridge, you save on mealie-meal. Tell the people that no sadza/isitshwala should be thrown away.”

Mahere described Mudenda’s advice as “crazy business” and questioned why money is always available to purchase vehicles for the political elite while resources for social welfare remain limited.

“Watching political fat cats say ‘let them eat porridge’ as a solution to El Niño preparedness is crazy business,” said Mahere.

“If the economy is truly booming, why aren’t they allocating enough resources to ensure we have adequate grain reserves to feed the population?

“Mari yemota havashaye, but when it comes to funding the welfare of the masses, citizens must take the hit. Vanotijairira vanhu ava.” *_-Pindula_*