JOHANNESBURG , 12 June 2008 (IRIN) - A 300,000 metric tonnes consignment of South African white maize is currently being dispatched to Zimbabwe a few weeks ahead of the 27 June re-run presidential election.

According to South African Grain Information Service, a non-profit company providing market information which was founded in 1997 after the deregulation of South Africa's agriculture sector, it was aware of the 300,000mt order of maize to Zimbabwe, but it had not as yet been officially registered with the information service.

President Robert Mugabe, who is attempting to extend his 28-years in office after coming off second best in the first round of voting in March, told an election rally on 29 May that his government had brought 600,000mt of maize from its neighbour South Africa to alleviate the country's chronic food shortages.

Zimbabwe's economy is in meltdown, with inflation unofficially cited at more than one million percent, and where shortages of fuel, power and foreign currency have become commonplace.

At current prices of about R1,800 (US$231) per metric tonne for white maize, a 300,000mt white maize consignment would cost Zimbabwe about US$70 million, before transport costs. It is assumed that Zimbabwe's government is paying for the maize imports, although no one was available to speak to IRIN at Zimbabwe's embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, to confirm the payment details.

Transnet Freight Rail spokesman Mike Asefovitz told IRIN that the South African parastatal was "definitely involved" in the transport of the maize consignment and additional resources, such as wagons and engines, were being called-on to facilitate the order.

The bulk of the maize being transported was "loose", Asefovitz said, although there was a small amount of maize that had been bagged. Maize was also being transported by road haulage companies, he said.

Muktar Farah, the country's deputy in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told IRIN, that no food distribution had taken place since Zimbabwe's government suspended all humanitarian operations on 28 May, after accusing nongovernmental organisations of "political activity."

He said Zimbabwe's crop assessment by the Food and Agricultural Organisation and World Food Programme was expected to be released next week, but that according to the government predictions of a one million tonnes maize shortfall it was expected that "food stress" would probably be experienced in July/August 2008, much earlier than last year.

International donor agencies provided food aid to 4.1 million people, more than a third of the population, between October 2007 and March 2008. The country's acute food shortages, compounded by government's recent admission that only 13 percent of the planned 2008 winter wheat crop had been planted, has led to expectations that food assistance would be required earlier in 2008 than the previous year.

Mugabe is facing Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), in this month's re-run election after neither attained a 50 percent plus one vote majority in the first round of voting on 29 March to win outright.

The elections saw the ruling ZANU-PF lose its majority in parliament for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980. Parliament has yet to be reconstituted.

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