Food rationing to continue but with fewer items

 

By Hazem al-Jumaili

 

Azzaman, January 4, 2008

 

The Ministry of Trade is to hand out new food rationing cards covering the whole of 2008 this month but Iraqi families are warned that they will receive much less subsidized food than before.

 

Last year food rationing system was almost in shambles with many Iraqi families going without rations for months.

 

There was also a marked reduction in the amount of food the government handed out and certain items had all but disappeared from the system.

 

The rationing system, which former leader Saddam Hussein had introduced in 1990, used to cover 11 basic food items which saved millions of Iraqis from starvation.

 

It was kept running smoothly until the demise of Saddam’s authority in 2003. Since then the system has been wrought with problems.

 

Currently, the rationing system includes only five main items and these do not reach Iraqis on time and if they do the beneficiaries get less than what the government says it hands out.

 

The reduction in food rations comes amid reports by the United Nations that Iraqis in general and children in particular are more impoverished now than the time of Saddam Hussein.

 

Massive movement of population has meant that millions of Iraqis go without rations. There are more than two million internally displaced Iraqis and at least two million more have fled abroad since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

 

A ministry source blamed insecurity and violence for failure to deliver the rations.

 

Refusing to be named, the source also pointed the finger at Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government which he accused of slashing allocations for food imports to sustain the system.