adminmiddlemen who are fleecing rural farmers at the market, according to a senior official.
Town clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi on Tuesday told parliamentarians that municipal police were accepting bribes from the middlemen, popularly known as Makoronyera, prejudicing mostly communal farmers.
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Agriculture and Land Reform chaired by Chikomba East MP Mr Moses Jiri (MDC-T) wanted to know what the city fathers were doing to deal with congestion and middlemen at Mbare Musika.
“It’s difficult for City of Harare to address the issue of Makoronyera . . . we have our own police but we have noticed that because of money involved our people have also been involved. We have tried to rotate them so that we don’t have people who are known to each other, even though we do that, they will come back,” said Dr Mahachi.
Council, said Dr Mahachi, was engaging the Zimbabwe Republic Police in a bid to find a lasting solution. He said they had also established an education committee to deal with the problem.
“Mbare is referred to as Chiadzwa because people make money there. My people are involved we have tried to rotate them, if you flash money it will be easy for them to accept, we are trying to reinforce supervision where our senior guys would come randomly,” he said.
Dr Mahachi said as part of efforts to decongest Mbare Musika, the city will expand the market after relocating people residing near the market.
“Harare has a partnership with a Chinese company where we are trying to remove some of the Joburg lines houses so as to revamp and provide more stalls for farmers and businesses,” he said.
Members of the committee were however, not happy with Dr Mahachi’s presentation saying it lacked a detailed plan on how they intend to de-congest the Mbare Musika agricultural produce market.
The committee noted that council officials were talking of plans, not real action. Legislators felt council officials might have thought about this while on their way to Parliament for the meeting. Hurungwe East representative Cde Sarah Mahoka (Zanu-PF) said it was surprising council officials came with no prepared paper to submit to Parliament.
She said many rural farmers were sleeping in the open during winter as city fathers were failing to provide decent shelter. Cde Mahoka said farmers were asked to pay US$10 per day but council failed to provide
shelter as what obtains at some tobacco auction floors. Muzarabani South MP Cde Edward Raradza (Zanu-PF) proposed that the officials be ordered to return on another day adequately prepared. Cde Raradza said the committee took exception with council’s apparent failure to deal with the chaos at Mbare Musika.
“We need to ask them to go back and bring us proper documents explaining what they are planning and when they will start those plans. We can not be told that we plan to do this; we plan to do that, without any documents or timeframes. We are not seeing any change for our farmers,” said Cde Raradza.
Director of housing Mr Justin Chivavaya, who was acco-mpanying Dr Mahachi, said council has collected US$5 million from Mbare Musika since January.
Mhondoro-Ngezi MP, Cde Bright Matonga (Zanu-PF) said: “You are collecting cash everyday. You can make serious investment in beefing up security.”
Cde Raradza said US$5 million was so significant council should have done greater things for farmers.
“With that amount you can do a lot. You can start fencing the perimeter. In the UDI (during Ian Smith’s reign), Highfield was fenced in one night. You need to fence so that you are left with two gates, one for entry and another for exit.”
Online Reporter