TIMB Urges Review of Tobacco Marketing Act

Source from:  New Ziana 04/06/2010

The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board is calling for the amendment of regulations that govern the industry to bring them in line with developments that have taken place over the years, an official said on Thursday. TIMB chief executive Dr Andrew Matibiri said there was need to review the Tobacco Marketing and Levy Act, which was designed for at least 1 800 white former commercial farmers and four buyers and was last amended in 2001. "It is no longer in sync with developments which have taken place in the industry where we now have many small-scale farmers," he said. "We now have 22 registered buyers and 38 000 tobacco farmers hence the need to change the way we operate in the sector," he said. Dr Matibiri said the envisaged amendments would also address delays that farmers experience at the auction floors where they sometimes spend days waiting to sell their crop. The tobacco marketing regulations require that anyone delivering their crop for sale at the auction floors should be registered as a grower first for the system to accept them. As a result, many small-scale farmers endure hardships at the floors as they first have to registering as a grower and then booking a sale, a process, which usually takes about two days. "They end up sleeping at the floors one way or the other," said Dr Matibiri, adding that amending the regulations would change the way stakeholders in the tobacco industry interacted. Dr Matibiri said the board also wanted to interrogate the issue of conducting tobacco sales at auction floors in Harare instead of decentralising, since small-scale farmers from outlying area incur costs of hiring transport. "We want to look at whether merchants should not go and buy the crop at the farms or farmers should continue to take their crop to the auction floors in Harare," he said. Every year tobacco farmers from all over the country converge at auction floors in Harare where they sometimes fall prey to thieves and unscrupulous individuals who swindle them of their hard-earned cash. Before the advent of agrarian reforms which saw thousands of previously marginalised blacks become proud owners of pieces of land, white commercial farmers booked sales over the phone and sent agents to deliver the crop, while payments were deposited into their banks. Zimbabwe Tobacco Auction Centre public relations officer Ms Kudzai Hamadziripi concurred with the TIMB boss, saying there was need for a paradigm shift in operations for the benefit of new and small-scale farmers. "There should be a transition to match the emergence of small-scale farmers," she said. Enditem