Crop inputs on black market

e being distributed by a committee of war veterans instead of GMB officials, which has seen some people not entitled to the inputs benefiting from the scheme.
Most of this fertiliser is being sold at Harare’s Mbare Musika, just outside OK supermarket, investigations have revealed.
One of the newly resettled farmers who identified himself as Nyasha Tsveru said he could not wait until harvest time in April next year because he had no money to feed his family.
“I have no choice,” he said. “I have a family to look after and this is the only thing which can help me get cash for my kids education. I am not selling all the fertilizer. I have one or two bags that I will conservatively use on my farm.” Some of the vendors said because of deepening poverty in Zimbabwe, where nearly 80 percent of people live below the poverty line, they had no choice but to find other means of living.
Banks ordered to raise cash
HARARE – President Robert Mugabe’s embattled government has hurriedly appointed four banks to help raise about R4billion to finance the importation of 500,000 tons of maize and 140,000 tons of wheat to avert famine in Zimbabwe before the crunch harmonized election in March.
The package came in the wake of assurances by Agriculture minister Rugare Gumbo to Parliament that government was doing all it could to raise foreign currency to pay for wheat imports currently docked at the Beira port because government is broke.
Ministry of Finance officials said the banks, Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Allied Banking Group, Interfin Merchant Bank and First Banking Corporation, had been provided with a government guarantee due to expire in 2012. They are to raise the money through the issuance of five-year bonds.