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Fiona Chigwida Business Correspondent
Seed Co says it has collected a total of $16 million from debtors since year end while Government has put in place in “net-off” structure with the group to clear its debt.
Chief executive Mr Morgan Nzwere told the annual general meeting last week that in Malawi, the group had been paid $5,3 million from the $6,8 million outstanding from the donor funded programme.  “The balance is expected before the end of August,” he said.
In Tanzania, payment of the $4 million due from Cotton Development Fund was progressing slowly with about $500 000 having been paid to date.

Mr Nzwere said in Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania the bulk of the amounts due from traders was almost paid up.
For Zimbabwe, Mr Nzwere said that Government was netting off taxes due to Zimra against the debt.

“But APDs are paid three times yearly so it’s not a big amount. They have also been offsetting PAYE and VAT against the debt.”
He said the group will eventually get Treasury Bills as the amount owed was “big”. Government owes about $30 million while over the last month through the arrangement; they had repaid about $3 million.

“They have also said that we have arrangements with banks which are in a tax paying position and that we owe so that they can do a structure where the banks will not pay Zimra and in turn we will not pay the bank.

“We have a few agreements with some banks which have to be ratified by Zimra. But then to be able to fully liquidate the debt takes some time as banks are making little profits. So maybe they will be a combination of these set offs and TBs.”

This comes as the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said it had issued a total of US$406 million TBs since the beginning of the year with the bulk of the TBs pertaining to the RBZ debt takeover programme by the Government.

Some of the TBs issued by the RBZ went towards clearing FCA and tobacco retention balances. Meikles also said it had received $49 million worth of the paper for balances held by the RBZ.