Grain Marketing Board To Fire 1 650 Workers
04/10/2010 11:22:00
Bulawayo, October 04, 2010 – Zimbabwe’s grain parastatal is set to retrench
1 650 employees before December as part of its turnaround programme amid
revelations that its expenditure exceeded overall income.
Grain Marketing Board (GMB) officials said the retrenchments are part of
cost cutting measures to rationalise operations by the loss making
parastatal.
GMB corporate communications manager, Muriel Zemura said the firm’s monthly
salary bill stood at US$1.2 million against monthly expenditure of
US$1.7million.
“The GMB’s total monthly expenditure stood at US$1.7 million hence the need
to retrench staff to bring the salary bill down to about US$500 000.
Zemura said the retrenchments are necessitated by the fact that the grain
parastatal is struggling to find its footing after years of collapse.
“Production levels at GMB fell tremendously to an extent that there was no
active labour at some of our depots, hence the decision to retrench,” Zemura
noted.
“The exercise covers everyone from the groundsman to senior management and
numbers differ as depots perform differently financially.”
GMB is one of the loss making parastatals that have over the years been
knocked down to their knees due to a combination of lack of working capital,
corruption and mismanagement.
The government plans to privatise GMB, that buys farmers produce.The loss
making grain parastatal has been struggling to pay farmers for maize
deliveries, a situation that resulted in it being dragged to court over
outstanding payments.