Bigwigs pillage new $500m agric scheme

HARARE - Mashonaland Central Provincial Affairs minister, Martin Dinha, has made startling claims that senior Zanu PF officials and members of the military are looting the new $500 million government-funded Command Agriculture programme, which seeks to improve the country's food security.

The looting has echoes of a similar State-backed scheme — the Farm Mechanisation programme, which was abused by bigwigs who ended up not paying a single cent for the equipment that they received, forcing the Reserve Bank Of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to recover the money through a controversial debt-assumption law.

Dinha made his shocking revelations to Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa last week, adding that officers responsible for the scheme were being harangued and inundated with requests from politicians and military personnel.

"Most of these culprits are officials from the army and some politicians. Some of the ordinary farmers would have spent days queuing for inputs only for senior officials to come and collect the whole load that would have been delivered," the stressed Dinha said.

It was confirmed to the Daily News yesterday that Mnangagwa had been given a comprehensive list of those officials who stand accused of looting the Command Agriculture inputs scheme.

"These are big fish and hopefully the VP will do something about it, otherwise the scheme will collapse as happened with other similar programmes in the past," a senior government official who requested anonymity said.

"We know the culprits and they should be stopped because this will cause disinterest among intended beneficiaries who would have waited for a long time to access the inputs," the concerned official added.

Speaking at the same occasion where Dinha briefed him last week, Mnangagwa threatened to punish all the people who would be caught stealing from the scheme.

"Now we are told some senior officials are now collecting inputs from districts at the expense of small-scale farmers and in some cases taking the whole load. This is unacceptable and whoever has been doing so must stop," he warned.

Under the scheme, farmers were given fertilisers, seed and tractors. On Friday, former Vice President Joice MujUru, who now leads the opposition Zimbabwe People First (ZPF), also accused top military personnel of looting the programme.
"After the land reform, one would argue that with better soils on the A1 farms, the peasant and smallholder farmers could grow more than 90 percent of the maize needed for our domestic consumption.

"But Mugabe's government has chosen to ignore these farmers, instead creating a looting machine called Command Agriculture — a $500 million facility being abused by top Zanu PF and military personnel who are now selling agricultural inputs ranging from seed, diesel, fertiliser, pesticides and herbicides on the black market.

"After the failure of ‘Operation Maguta', carried out by the army some time past, it does not make sense to entrust the same personnel with command agriculture and expect different results," Mujuru said in her end-of-year speech.

Despite assurances from the government that farmers who access the current scheme would be audited, there are growing concerns that many of the bigwigs who are looting it will escape censure from the authorities.

Zim history is littered with myriad stories of looting from the State by Zanu PF and senior government officials.

Some of scandals include the illegal resale of cars purchased under a government VIP scheme which became known as the Willowgate scandal, after it was abused by ministers and the War Victims Compensation Fund in which money meant for freedom fighters was fraudulently siphoned out through inflated claims by Cabinet ministers or senior members of the uniformed forces.