GMB suspends workers after maize, rice vanish http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Saturday, 13 March 2010 15:28
THE Grain Marketing Board has suspended three workers in the logistics department at its head office after 120 tonnes of rice and 30 tonnes of maize disappeared from the Aspindale depot in Harare. The Standard is reliably informed that on Friday last week all workers in the logistics department were suspended to facilitate investigations.
“This scandal was unearthed sometime last month when some GMB workers were caught forging papers and allocating themselves tonnes of either rice or maize from the Aspindale depot,” said a source.
The workers, the sources alleged were writing fake haulage vehicle registration numbers of small vehicles like Mazda 323s and fake stand addresses.
Grain Marketing Board public relations officer Joseph Katete last week confirmed that there was such an investigation and three officials had been suspended.
Katete said: “I can confirm that such a case has been reported at GMB.”
He refused to comment further.
The matter has been reported to the ZRP Serious Fraud Unit.
Meanwhile farmers in Chegutu are fuming at the GMB for failing to pay for their deliveries after more than $35 000 disappeared at the depot.
A GMB Chegutu depot administration clerk Pianos Ganyawu has been arrested and has appeared before Chegutu Magistrate Judith Taruvinga on allegations of theft.
Ganyawu represented by Tinashe Matiyashe of Mangwana and Partners was denied bail and the matter would be heard on March 16.
The state represented by Allen Chifokoyo alleges that on February 23 this year Ganyawu was given US$85 000 by assistant depot manager Samson Kachepe to pay farmers.
Ganyawu paid the farmers from February 24 to March 5, but later claimed that there had been a break-in at his office and that US$35 930 had been stolen from a locked trunk.
The state alleges that the break in was fake.
Our Staff