Former GMB boss says Zimbabwe out of food

By Violet Gonda
5 January 2007

The Grain Marketing Board was established in 1931 in response to the 1930 World Recession. Its main purpose, which has largely remained the same over the seven decades, is to ensure Food Security in Zimbabwe with particular reference to staple food products, namely, maize and wheat.

Despite being given trillions of Zimbabwean dollars to import 900 000 tonnes of maize, the reserves are now empty according to Renson Gasela, former Chief Executive of the GMB.

Gasela, who is now Secretary for Lands and Agriculture in the Mutambara MDC, said he has been studying letters written by Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono to the GMB and noticed that only 500 000 tonnes of maize had been bought and it is not enough to feed the country. He said we have actually run out maize as a country but there is no mention of what happened to the other half of the money given to the GMB to buy the much-needed grain.

Many millers especially in Bulawayo have run out of maize meal.

In May last year the Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made announced a bumper harvest saying Zimbabwe would get 1.8million tonnes, the total annual requirement. But experts dismissed this saying there were not enough seeds and fertilizer. Gasela said; “It was impossible that that they could actually produce that quantity. We have run out food as a country against good rain season last year and against predictions of a bumper harvest of 1.8million. So they were not telling the truth.”

While the government was telling people Zimbabwe had produced surplus food at the time, it is reported that they were secretly importing food from neighbouring countries. The opposition official said as early as June last year the government contracted a company in South Africa called Intshona Agricultural Products to import 600 000tonnes of maize. He said; “Apparently that 600 000tonnes of maize is not here because if it was here then we would not be having these shortages.”

Intshona Agricultural Products is also the company that is reported to have supplied sub-standard fertiliser and poor quality wheat to Zimbabwe .

Economists and agricultural experts blame bad policies and mis-governance for the food crisis. Its also reported another contributing factor is the failure by the GMB to pay communal farmers, who normally produce the bulk of the country’s maize.

The former GMB boss said another huge problem is that the grain supplier is now being manned by military people and youth militia resulting “in everything becoming a state secret.”