TIMB cancels licences of four tobacco companies

THE Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) has canceled licences of four tobacco contracting companies that were leasing their licenses to suspended merchants, an official said.

TIMB recently suspended some tobacco companies that failed to pay farmers in a bid to bring sanity to the industry and promote orderly marketing. According to TIMB, the companies owe farmers as much as US$1,6 million.

Some merchants are also owed by the farmers who apparently sold their crop to non-sponsoring firms.

It has emerged that some companies were leasing their licenses to suspended merchants that have been disbursing inputs to thousands of unsuspecting farmers.

TIMB acting chief executive Mr Emmanuel Matsvaire said in an interview licenses belonging to Leanrise Tobacco, Bigway Investments, J&P Golden Tobacco and Achievers Leaf Tobacco had been cancelled.

“These companies were promoting unlicensed players to gain entrance into the industry,” said Mr Matsvaire.

Some industry players hailed the move by TIMB as a step in the right direction in enforcing regulatory compliance.

Meanwhile, an audit into the Tobacco Input Credit Scheme (TICS), administered by the TIMB, is expected to be completed soon. Appearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development last Thursday, Mr Matsvaire said the overall objective of the audit was to investigate transactions involving private merchants that participated under the scheme.

The committee is chaired by Gokwe-Nembudziya legislator Justice Mayor Wadyajena.

Under the TICS scheme, the TIMB disburses inputs to merchants to support smallholder farmers who fail to access the inputs from private commercial contractors.

The TIMB has no capacity to contract the farmers.

However, some companies have failed to repay the debts and Mr Matsvaire confirmed that the country’s tobacco regulatory board was owed huge amounts of money.

Mr Matsvaire said the audit would be completed in the next two weeks, adding some companies that are yet to repay their debts have come up with payment plans.

While he appeared not too privy on how the scheme was run before, or the criteria used to award contracts to the participating merchants, he acknowledged there was a board resolution directing the management to engage the contractors, suggesting that all the transactions were done above board.

Asked how the companies got to know about the scheme, Mr Matsvaire said “to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence to indicate that there was an invitation (calling companies) to participate (yet)…but there is a board resolution.”

“It is (a matter) that is now under investigation.”

However, Bindura Tobacco and Bigway Leaf Tobacco, which appeared before the same committee said there is evidence TIMB invited players to take part in the scheme.

“We applied to the TIMB to participate in TICS…there was an invitation, which we responded to, it was a letter not written to us specifically,”

Bindura Tobacco general manager Blessing Mudzamba told the committee. He did not produce evidence to back the claim.

However, Mr Wadyajena reprimanded the tobacco companies for misleading the committee.

“It just shows that you are not being truthful or (you have) an element of deceiving us,” he said, in reference to the claims that there was an official invitation.

“We do not want to go to an extent of invoking the standing orders,” said Mr Wadyajena.

Mr Mudzamba confirmed before the committee that Bindura Tobacco owed TIMB nearly US$1 million.

It got inputs worth just over US$1 million and US$215 000 in 2020 and 2021 respectively. The inputs complemented some they had bought using their own resources.-ebusinessweeekly