TIMB clears air on Munakiri Leaf Tobacco license

Phil Jambaya

The Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board has said that Munakiri Leaf Tobacco's license is a registered tobacco buyer whose license is valid.

"Munakiri Leaf Tobacco failed to meet the buying requirements for a Class A license and was rejected. However, Munakiri is a holder of a contracting license." TIMB told Zim Now

This follows queries that this publication had received from members of the public who were questioning how Munakiri Leaf Tobacco was still buying tobacco after media outlets had reported that it was deregistered.

When Zim Now visited the contractor Munakiri Leaf Tobacco said that they did not heed the media reports which were totally inaccurate:

“We were surprised by media reports that we had been deregistered as we never received any such communication from TIMB.

“Therefore it is business as usual here. We are doing what we know best, making sure that our farmers get fairly rewarded for their work,” said CEO Mr Simbarashe Munakiri

He said that TIMB invited the company to resubmit that Class A buyer bid but they felt that they would defer the application for this season as they had not planned for it.

“As our application had been turned down on some technicality, we had not mobilised the resources to go on the auction floors.

“We did not want to compromise our contracted farmers who have come to know that Munakiri is reliable. So for this year we decided to that we will ensure that we stick to our existing mandate,” said Munakiri.

Class A license holders are the ones that can buy from the tobacco auction floors while contract buyers only procure from the farmers that they would have contracted in the registration period prior to the marketing season.

TIMB this week revealed that five tobacco contractors have voluntarily pulled out from buying pending investigations into their alleged illicit deals by the tobacco regulatory body.

They named the five as Mbaluki, Golden Ban, Huruyadzo, SaveMox and Dynamic.

Meanwhile TIMB has released statistics showing that tobacco sales have generated US$253 million as at day 27 of the marketing season.

1 093 644 bales totalling 86 million kg have been sold at an average price of US$3

Auction floors have taken delivery of 8 million kg with contractors making up the bulk of purchases at 78 million kg.