Minister grilled over late payment of farmers

FINANCE minister Mthuli Ncube was on Wednesday grilled in Parliament over late payment of farmers for deliveries to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB).

Legislators from Zanu PF and the opposition said they had received distress calls from farmers who were worried that the delay would erode their outstanding dues given the inflationary environment.

This is despite the government’s perennial assurance that GMB would pay farmers within 72 hours of grain delivery.

Ncube said Treasury had plans to cover late payment for grain deliveries and acknowledged that inflation was eroding their dues.

“The RTGS component is in reference to the time when they supplied their products to GMB. With the inflation we are experiencing, it has affected the value of the RTGS component,” Ncube told parliamentarians.

“Coming to the payment, we are paying in Zimbabwe dollar in one portion and another portion in US dollars.”

Farmers have been complaining that late payment affected their farming business as well as discouraged them from delivering grain to GMB.

Ncube acknowledged the inconveniences that farmers face over late payment.

“We have been trying very hard to pay as quickly as we can before the Zimdollar component loses value. That is our strategy,” Ncube pledged.

“We have not been paying interest or compensation at all, but we endeavour to pay as quickly as possible before the situation gets worse.”

He added: “We will be making an announcement in this regard where(by) we believe it will be a last blow to increases in prices and generally inflation.”

Ncube said they now had a new policy to ensure that all arrears are cleared before the next cycle.

“That is exactly what we are going to do going forward to clear all arrears for the next season so that we can encourage the farmer to go back to the land, otherwise they will get discouraged and then see our agriculture going down as a result,” he said.

“Going forward, we will make sure that all these arrears are cleared before the next season resumes.”

Ncube also told legislators that they are making progress in introducing the Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange (ZMX), a platform to facilitate the buying and selling of a wide range of agricultural products.

“The process of introducing the ZMX has taken quite a while, but we are pleased that we made very good progress. It is beginning to work,” he said before explaining how the ZMX would work.

“What we do at the beginning of each season is something very simple. We always announce a planning price so that the farmer can plan and see whether the price that the government is signalling is the right one and they want to take the risk and go on to the land and farm,” he said.

“We have been approached by the private sector players working with ZMX to also market commodities such as chrome for example, in addition to maize, wheat, sorghum and other commodities.

“We will see the commodity exchange begin to broaden its activities across a variety of commodities, both agricultural and mineral.”