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Elita Chikwati Senior Reporter
Government is committed to ensuring gender balance and equal opportunities for men and women, especially in the agriculture sector.

This came out on Wednesday when Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Minister Perrance Shiri met the newly appointed board members for the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), Pig Industry Board (PIB), Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) and the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA).

He said there had been concerns over the new boards which appeared to be biased towards men adding this would be corrected when the remaining parastatal boards are appointed.

Minister Shiri is yet to announce the Cold Storage Commission and Agribank boards.

“Gender mainstreaming is at the core of Government policy,” he said. “We are committed to ensuring that we have representation of the aspects of gender on our boards.

“I promise that we are going to come up with a shocker when appointing the remaining boards. The ones we have announced appear to have been dominated by males, but I assure you the remaining boards will not necessarily reflect that. We are going to take appropriate measures.”

Minister Shiri said boards played a pivotal role in directing the operations of parastatals.

“It is always healthy for the companies and parastatals to have boards,” he said. “It is an anomaly to allow them to operate without boards given the crucial role they play in directing operations of parastatals.

“We are very much alive to the fact that some of our parastatals do not have boards and we are working tirelessly to rectify that. Very soon we are going to be announcing new boards for the remaining parastatals,”  he said.