Maize meal, Zimbabweans ' staple food, ran short in Zimbabwe's second largest city of Bulawayo and other areas in the southern part of the country, raising fears that the country may have to import.

"We have no mealie-meal. There is nothing in our shops," Aaron Muchapa, a supermarket manager, said here on Wednesday.

A miller, who declined to be named, said they sent trucks to buy maize from the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) in the past three weeks but got nothing. "There is nothing at the board," he said.

The government is blaming millers for the shortage, accusing them of hoarding maize to push for a price hike while millers say there is no maize at GMB depots.

In Zimbabwe, the sale of mealie-meal is controlled by the government. No one is allowed to buy maize from farmers except the government-owned GMB, which buys maize at 31,000 Zimbabwe dollars (about 124 U.S. dollars) a ton.

But it is generally known that some dealers offer more than the government-gazetted price and this is where most of the maize goes to.

Zimbabwe's economy is driven by agriculture with maize as the most widely grown crop. But the country has failed to achieve its maize-production target in the past 10 years owing to successive droughts and the sanctions by the Western countries.