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The maize marketing season has just started, the same for that of cotton, two important crops that received large sums of money in Government funding this season.

Tens of millions were spent on the Command Agriculture targeted at maize while tens of millions more were poured into cotton growing.  The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, in its Treasury Quarterly Bulletin: January-March 2017, indicated that “Zimbabwe is expecting a maize harvest of about 2.7 million tonnes during the 2016-17 farming season boosted by the success of the Special Maize Programme commonly referred to as Command Agriculture.

With respect to cotton, production increased from 33 million kilogrammes in the 2015-16 season to 127 million kg in the 2016-17 season, translating to a staggering 286 percent, on the back of the $42 million Presidential Well-Wishers Inputs Scheme.

However, the benefits that farmers and the Government expected to reap from bumper maize and cotton harvests may not materialise, not because of natural factors, or farmers’ failings but because of corruption in the marketing of the crops.

As for maize, it is suspected that GMB insiders are working with dealers to steal from farmers while for cotton, some farmers in Gokwe are conniving with some traders to steal from the Government.

Officials at a few GMB depots are turning away farmers claiming that their maize had a moisture content in excess of the 12, 5 percent threshold to enable their connections outside the depots to buy the maize cheaply and immediately sell it at the same centres at the normal price.  It is said that some middlemen are buying the crop for as little as $150 per tonne before they sell it at $390 per tonne.

About 95 percent of the cotton that was grown during the past season was financed by the Presidential Well-Wishers Inputs Scheme through Cottco.  This was some kind of contract under which the Government should buy all the cotton grown using the presidential inputs.  It has however transpired that dealers who did not sponsor the growing of the crop are now at the forefront of buying cotton, paying cash on delivery.  They are doing so in broad daylight in Gokwe, reaping where they didn’t sow.

It is deeply worrying that corruption is once again, threatening to defeat the whole purpose of delivering value to the farmer, or that of delivering cotton to the financier which in this case is the Government.

We find it unacceptable that our farmers who toiled tending their crops for a bountiful harvest are losing what is really their money to corrupt elements at GMB.  These deals are happening openly.  This has been happening for a while.

We demand immediate action from the Government to investigate the goings-on at the GMB depots.  If it is proved that indeed some officials are corruptly rejecting maize and accepting it back when their accomplices deliver, those involved must be arrested and prosecuted.  Such investigations must be fairly easy to conduct.  We will not prescribe how police can go about it, but we suggest that some of them can accompany farmers to problem depots, particularly in Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central and see how the process is conducted.  One example would be good enough to send a strong message across that the thieves can play around with people’s livelihoods at their own grave risk.

As we pointed out earlier, corrupt elements are openly stealing from the Government, paying in hard currency for a cotton crop whose growing they didn’t sponsor.  They are active in probably all cotton-growing zones in the country, but most of the complaints have come out of Gokwe.  Some of them actually represent known companies.  This cannot be allowed to continue.  As with maize, investigations on shady marketing deals should be easy to conduct.

Farmers who accepted the presidential inputs on condition that they would sell to Cottco, but are now diverting the crop, should face the music too.

However, there is a likelihood that some reports of corruption are untrue.  Maize farmers may have hurried their harvesting before their crop had reached the right moisture content.  These must be urged to invest in driers to quicken the drying of their crop or to be more patient if they decide on natural drying.  Thereafter they can bag their crop and deliver to the GMB.

The Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Dr Joseph Made has just announced that the Government is deploying teams to assist farmers to attain the desired moisture content for their maize before they approach the market.  We expect the teams to work hard and long to help farmers so that only those who sowed, harvest.