GMB posts $209 million loss

Published: 25 January 2018

THE Grain Marketing Board (GMB) posted a $209 million loss in the financial year ended December 31, 2017 due to subsidised sales to millers, an official has said.

According to ZBCtv, GMB general manager Mr Rockie Mutenha revealed this on Tuesday while giving oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement chaired by Gokwe-Nembudziya legislator, Mr Justice Mayor Wadyajena.

Mr Mutenha said the loss by the parastatal during the period under review was largely attributed to the maize that GMB sold to local millers at subsidised price which reflected on its books.

The marketing board was buying maize at $390 per tonne and selling it at $240 a tonne and also failed to recover costs accruing from storage and handling fees charges. GMB is also owed $68 million of which $14.6 million are debts carried over from the Zimbabwe dollar era. The country adopted a multi-currency system in February 2009 to tame the hyperinflationary pressures that saw prices of goods and services reaching unprecedented levels.

The Parliamentarians grilled the GMB boss over the disbursement of Presidential Inputs which they allege was done on political grounds and the committee was interested in details pertaining to Mr Mutenha's appointment as general manager at the parastatal.

Mr Mutenha holds a MSc Marketing, Msc Strategic Management and a Masters in Business Administration.

He was appointed GMB general manager after the parastatal went for two years without a substantive general manager when Mr Albert Mandizha who had been at the helm of the marketing board from 2008 to 2014 left the organisation.

Mr Mutenha joined GMB from the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) where he was the chief executive officer. AMA is another parastatal under the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement.

Mr Mutenha has also held executive positions with various reputable organisations which include the Agricultural Finance Corporation, Cotton Company of Zimbabwe, FSI Cotton Ltd, Cairns Foods and Westbay Agro Industries.
- the herald

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