Zimbabwe to float treasury bills next week as it runs out of cash to pay farmers for this year’s harvest

Q & A

HON. KASHIRI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.  I would want to find out from the Hon. Minister if there has been a change or shift in the payment system of command because when the season started, we were told that there will be a 72 hour gap in making payments, and how it has gone for two months.  Has there been shift in that policy?

HON. DR. MASUKA:  Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for the supplementary question.  Mr. Speaker Sir, when Government announced the policy that farmers delivering their grain to the GMB depot will be paid within 72 hours and those that will deliver to collection points will be paid within 5 days, that policy has not changed.  This was to entice and motivate farmers to deliver.  We were basing on the 2018/2019 season, which was an equally good season where the GMB intake was over 1.2 million metric tonnes.  For the deliveries in the 2020/2021 agricultural season, farmers have responded overwhelmingly and because the harvest has been very good, as of yesterday Mr. Speaker Sir, 710000 metric tonnes of grain had been delivered to the GMB valued at over 23 billion dollars, of which $14 billion has been paid and the outstanding amount is $9 billion. Our aged analysis indicates that the amounts that are outstanding beyond two weeks now constitute 44% of the amounts owed to farmers.

We had put in place three ways of mobilising resources to pay farmers.  The first was Treasury availing funds and they have done very well.  They have availed the $14 billion.

The second was that we anticipated the total value of grains to be purchased to be in the region of $60 billion thereby straining Treasury and therefore, necessitating as a deed that we put in place another avenue.  These were the Agricultural Marketing Authority agro bills, which are now in the market.  The subscription is fairly low and after discussions yesterday, a decision was made by Cabinet that we open another window where Treasury bills would be floated and hopefully by mid next week, mobilisation of resources to pay farmers would have been accelerated.

The third avenue was that GMB was immediately allowed to sell the grains they received so that they create a revolving fund to enable GMB to assist with these payments.  So, the revolving fund and the Treasury window are the sources of financing that we are utilising.  We apologise as Government to all the farmers that have put in so much hard work for the delays in the payments and assure them that Government is doing everything in its power to ensure that we pay.  However, compared to last season, Government has done exceedingly well and we urge farmers to be more patient.  I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.

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