First Lady proud owner of farms, while country starves

By Ofentse Mokae
27 September 2009

First Lady Grace Mugabe, the wife of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, owns dairy farms that sell up to a million litres of milk a year to food giant Nestle', while millions in her country starve.

London’s Sunday Telegraph reports Grace Mugabe took over six of the country’s most valuable white-owned farms around 2002.

Mugabe, his wife and other members of his administration are the subject of European Union and United States sanctions as a result of their controversial 29-year rule over once-prosperous Zimbabwe.

Nestle, the multinational food company which is the largest customer of Grace Mugabe's dairy farm, is not obliged to comply with those sanctions as its headquarters are in Switzerland, the Telegraph said.