In a statement issued after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Information Minister Christopher Mushohwe warned the Grain Marketing Board (GMB)’s staff against conniving with unlicensed grain merchants to prejudice farmers and ill-treating farmers.
Said Mushohwe:
Cabinet has warned the GMB against ill-treating farmers who deliver their grain as corrective measures will be taken. GMB should receive and accept all grain delivered to its depots across the country in an open and transparent manner. It should urgently set up satellite depots at rural districts and service centres in order to cut down on transport costs and boost grain deliveries. Cabinet wishes to advise that any GMB or public officials found and or believed to be conniving or colluding with unlicensed grain merchants to prejudice farmers and the State will be dealt with resolutely in terms of the country’s laws. To this end, farmers and the public at large should expose and report all malpractices by public officials and bogus grain buyers and sellers to the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development and the Police for prompt corrective action.
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