An NGO source told The Zimbabwean that donors were alarmed after the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, which is leading efforts to raise nearly $60 million for the project, was forced to hand over control to the state-run GMB.
"There are strong suspicions that a lot of the resources allocated last year were abused by officials at the GMB," said a senior official for a leading European agency, who cannot be named for obvious reasons.
"Instead of giving the inputs to all poor farmers in the communal areas, we believe that the GMB distributed them along partisan lines and used some of the inputs to pay farmers for grain delivered to it," he said.
The donors also established that some of the inputs were diverted to ‘new’ farmers who forcibly occupied commercial farms. The inputs then found their way to senior government and military officials, while some were sold on the black market.
The Zimbabwean last year exposed a racket in Masvingo, where Zanu (PF) politicians were found using the inputs for their electoral campaigns.
"All these activities that we discovered are against our principles as these inputs were supposed to benefit the poor. We also heard that the GMB bought luxury cars," said an official.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti recently announced that of the $100 million was needed to help one million poor households, and the state could only provide $45 million,
The state intends to provide input packages comprising 10 kgs of maize or small grain seed, 50 kg compound D and 100 kgs top dressing fertilizer. Biti said the target was to have 400 000 hectares under grain crops this year.
Comment could not be obtained from the GMB, which is dominated by military officials and has been accused of failing to pay for grain deliveries.
Post published in: News