By Staff Reporter
MASVINGO – Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water
Resources Development Professor Dr Obert Jiri has challenged the Grain Marketing Board to be
innovative and think outside the box to raise its own financial resources to meet its obligations,
saying the days of relying on Treasury are over.
Professor Jiri was speaking to GMB at the annual strategic meeting held at Clevers Resort in
Masvingo recently.
He said Treasury had competing demands and could not always be relied upon to fund GMB on
time, and the parastatal should find alternative means of raising money to pay salaries and
farmers.
“GMB has money but you just don’t know where and how to get it. You need to think differently
and ask yourselves how you can raise money. The treasury has competing demands, so at times
even if you try to push, you won’t get the money to pay farmers.
“So what do you do? You think outside the box. Gone are the days when you used to get money
on time by the treasury in April and keep it until farmers start delivering grain. Now we no
longer do that. We put money where it’s needed there and there. So it means we have to think
differently from what we were doing in the 80s,” said Professor Jiri.
He challenged the leadership to use their experience and fuse it with the younger generation of
employees to innovate and bring new ideas, saying if they brought proposals, there was no way
his office and the government would fail to approve them.
“With all the time you have been at GMB, what did you bring or what did you leave when you
left? With all this wealth of experience, so what in the GMB equation? Bring the innovative
ideas, even if they are against policy, we will change the policies to match with the new ideas”
said Professor Jiri.
He said GMB could venture into warehousing and transport business and make a lot of money
from there to use to pay workers and avoid the current situation where workers always threaten
to go on strike and farmers do not want to bring grain because they fear they may not be paid.
He also told the gathering that strategic meetings were supposed to be platforms for
brainstorming ideas that would be employed to make sure that GMB is self-sustained.
One of GMB’s longest serving employees Felton Kamambo (FORMER Zifa President) said the
GMB today was totally different from the one he joined in 1989.
He said they used to submit their budget to treasury in March and the funds would be released by
April. He said they would buy grain that would stay in the depot for more than seven years at
times because.
GMB Chief Executive Officer Dr Edson Badarai promised Professor Jiri that the parastatal had
heard his advice and his executive was ready to implement the ideas, saying they were already
working towards that having already bought several vehicles for the organisation.
He also said the parastatal was ready to receive grain from farmers in preparation for the
drought.
“I want to highlight GMB preparedness in terms of El Niño induced drought. Our cumulative
intake target is 600 metric tonnes. We have already collected 156 thousand for the 2025-2026
summer and we are targeting 150 000 again for winter wheat which has already begun to come.
We currently have 1,800 metric tonnes. We are also targeting 150 000 for the grain in the 2026-
2027 summer season and the same amount for winter wheat. We are geared and prepared for the
drought and we assure the nation that we did it in 2024 and we are going to do it again,” said Dr
Badarai.
He also encouraged farmers to do agro-ecological tailoring where farmers grow crops that are
compatible with their region, especially in drought, and said most farmers should focus on small
grains unless they have irrigation.
He said GMB had a facility where they would do grain swap where those with small grain and
want maize can swap one as to one.
