Sakunda holdings Chief Operating Officer Mberikwazvo Chitambo has humbled Tendai Biti by giving evidence that his company got USD 1.010billion for command agriculture contrary to the legislators claim that it got 3 billion.
Giving oral evidence before Public Account Committee, Chitambo said all the money that were paid by government was accounted for.
“Mr Chairman let me state that all the money we got was accounted for. We got an amount of USD 1.010billion and that money went to suppliers of seed, fertilizer and all the inputs. We have accounted for everything,” he said.
Turning to form of payments, Chitambo said they did not get the money once but they got staggered payments on monthly bases.
“We did not receive this money once, but we got it on monthly bases but because we had already worked on framework, we even paid suppliers using our own funds. Remember some of these suppliers did not want to work with the government because of the delays in payments and that is why they agreed to work with us,” he added.
Asked if the company went to tender, Chitambo said they were invited by government to work on command agriculture.
“We were invited to do this by the government in 2016 and we worked on a framework. Let me say this Mr Chairman we were invited to save the agriculture industry that was under threat by then,” he said.
Chitambo said everything was above board and all the suppliers were paid their money on time.
Legislators questioned if they paid the money in local currency.
“We did not get all the money in foreign currency from the government but we got it some in local currency and we would pay suppliers with the currency we got. For instance we have some foreign suppliers who took us to court for that because we were given the money in local and foreign currency as those days it was 1:1,” he added.
