Heads roll at GMB, two top executives fired over stolen millions

By Nigel Pfunde

Grain Marketing Board (GMB) senior managers were in December 2019 shown the exit door over misappropriation of millions of dollars, Zim Morning Post can report.

Zim Morning Post understands that corporate secretary Rodney Mzyece and Operations Director Lawrence Jasi were fired in December amid allegations contained in an audit report which is yet to be made public.

“These guys were exposed through an internal audit that was conducted last year where it emerged that they abused funds that came from Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ). The audit report has been kept under wraps for now until the board approves that it be made public,” an impeccable source told Zim Morning Post.

This comes amid allegations of a rift within the senior management with inquiries over the irregular appointment of chief executive Rockie Mutenha.

Mutenha is alleged to have been appointed without board approval.

“Mutenha was appointed without board approval and some of the ousted executives were vocal over his appointment and they were sacrificed. His ill health also renders him not fit and proper to occupy such a high office,” further revealed our source.

In a letter to the GMB auditors, Baker Tilly and Chartered Accountants, Mutenha, as the GMB general manager, confirmed that GMB had received over $5 million from GMAZ.

“GMB was given authority to utilise funding from the GMAZ facility for silo rehabilitation works. The entity has to date withdrawn $5 516 244, 99. This was all channeled towards the waterproofing of silos,” part of the letter, signed by Mutenha on February 13, 2018,” reads part of the letter.

In 2017, then Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa also acknowledged that government had received funding from GMAZ to rehabilitate silos.

Corruption has remained a cancer at GMB after precedence set by the late former Agriculture minister Kumbirai Kangai.

GMB corporate communications official Lindiwe Machanyanga could neither confirm nor deny the development, she referred all questions to one Joseph Katete whose mobile phone went unanswered at the time of publishing. Zim Morning Post