GMB orders farmers to deliver grain (30-11-06)

of this invoice”, the board, which has a monopoly on grain trade, said on Monday.
The GMB has the sole legal right to import and export maize and wheat in Zimbabwe. The UN World Food Programme and international donors have criticised the GMB’s monopoly of the grain trade and urged the government to relax controls so that food imports could reach the country more quickly. Commercial farmers say that government supporters who have seized the farms have left grain to rot in the fields.
“On one farm alone, one family lost 600ha of wheat after they were chased off their farm,” said a spokesperson for Justice for Agriculture, a lobby group of white commercial farmers. Zimbabwe’s supreme court has reserved judgment on a local company’s challenge against the GMB monopoly over all trade in the staple maize. Frontline Marketing has asked the country’s highest court to terminate the GMB’s monopoly and allow other players to trade in maize and wheat.
Zimbabwe’s attorney-general, Sobusa Gula-Ndebele, told the court the instrument was necessary to protect consumers against profiteering in sales of the scarce commodities. “In order to meet the objective of ensuring equitable distribution of maize at an affordable price, it is necessary to control the marketing of maize as prescribed by the (GMB) act,” he said.