LANDS secretary Ringson Chitsiko told Parliament yesterday that the country was expecting to produce about 1,8 million metric tonnes of maize this year, but warned that they might face storage challenges as most silos were in a state of disrepair.
Victoria Mtomba
Chitsiko made the remarks when he appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands and Agriculture.
“We expect anything between 1,6 to 1,8 million metric tonnes. This meeting came a bit earlier as we are in the process of doing our crop assessment,” he said.
“We expect that the government will facilitate Grain Marketing Board to buy some of the mandatory grain reserve, that is, 500 000 metric tonnes. We are also hopeful the private sector will come in and purchase some of the grain,” he said.
Chitsiko said the government requires close to $400 million for the strategic grain reserve, adding that so far Treasury had allocated a paltry $90 million to GMB.
“We will approach the private sector for the possibility of getting grain.”
He added that the maintenance of the silos was critical part of the infrastructure and GMB was sourcing funds to address this challenge.
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“It’s not only at Aspindale, but everywhere in the country that the silos require this period maintenance. Currently GMB has been trying to source funding for the maintenance, but as I have said earlier as a country we facing serious financial challenges, the funding of silos is not forth coming, he said.
Chitsiko said he was hopeful that by August the silos would have been repaired.
“Probably the Bulawayo silo is still intact. Others need maintenance. Avic, a Chinese company, is saying if we get $7 million upfront then they can kick start efforts to repair the silos as Avic will chip in with their own funding,” he said.
Chitsiko attributed GMB’s failure to pay its workers over the past six months to the financial squeeze.
He said the GMB was funding most of its activities with proceeds from its commercial units because Treasury has not been forthcoming with assistance, adding that the parastatal was owed $44 million by government . GMB is one of the parastatals earmarked for restructuring.
