Audit Puts AMA Under Pressure Over Accounting Breaches
The silence from the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) was loudest on Tuesday afternoon, long after phones had rung out and promised callbacks failed to materialise. On the table sat a damning Auditor-General’s report, raising questions about how the country’s main agricultural market regulator is managing its own books.
The report on AMA’s 2024 financial statements, issued by Auditor-General Vimbai Chikwenhere, flags accounting misstatements, arrears on statutory obligations, and an unresolved foreign debt of ZWG2.3 million. AMA, a statutory body under the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, has not publicly responded to the findings.
At stake is more than just paperwork. AMA regulates and develops the marketing of grains, oilseeds, livestock and other commodities, with a mandate to promote orderly, efficient and fair agricultural markets. Its credibility matters to every farmer waiting for a buyer, every miller seeking supply, and every policy-maker trying to align agriculture with National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) and the vision of an upper middle-income economy by 2030.
Audit Flags Breaches In Accounting Standards
Chikwenhere issued a qualified opinion on AMA’s 2024 financial statements, citing non-compliance with International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). The key problems related to how AMA valued its property, plant and equipment, how it accounted for hyperinflation, and how it handled previous accounting errors.
In earlier audit cycles, the Auditor-General had already warned AMA over the valuation of property, plant and equipment amounting to ZWG37.3 million. AMA had used different methods for different asset classes, contrary to IPSAS 45 on property, plant and equipment.
“The prior year financial statements were modified due to non-compliance with IPSAS 45 – ‘Property, Plant and Equipment’ on valuation of property, plant and equipment amounting to ZWG 37.3 million,” Chikwenhere said.
Land and buildings were valued at market value, while other property, plant and equipment were adjusted using gross replacement values. The mixing of valuation methods left the financial statements out of line with prescribed standards.
Rather than correct the problem, AMA carried the misstatement into the current year, breaching IPSAS 3, which governs how prior-period errors must be fixed. That error then spilled into another critical area: reporting in a hyperinflationary environment.
“Inflation Adjusted amounts in terms of IPSAS 10 – ‘Financial Reporting in Hyperinflationary Economies’ were determined basing on misstated historical property, plant and equipment balance, consequently, corresponding amounts for property and equipment on the final adjusted Statement of Financial Performance, the inflation adjusted Statement of Financial Position, the inflation adjusted Statement of Changes in Net Assets, and the inflation adjusted Statement of Cash Flows remain misstated. The effects of the misstatements have not been quantified,” Chikwenhere said.
FFA Explainer:
International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) are rules used by governments and public entities to prepare their financial statements. They set out how to value assets, record income and expenses, and disclose risks. Non-compliance does not automatically mean theft or fraud, but it weakens trust in the numbers presented.
AMA did carry out an asset revaluation in 2024, and the Auditor-General accepted that this addressed some of the earlier issues. The valuation of property was deemed resolved, and the separation of land and buildings after revaluation also ticked off another previous finding. Yet two of four past audit issues remained unresolved.
Statutory Arrears And Foreign Debt Linger
The most politically sensitive findings relate to statutory obligations and outstanding creditors. AMA, which polices parts of the agricultural value chain, has itself fallen behind on legally required payments.
“The Authority was not up to date with NSSA and ZIMDEF and had a payment plan for PAYE,” the Auditor-General reported.
NSSA is the National Social Security Authority, which manages pensions and workplace injury schemes, while ZIMDEF is the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund, which finances skills training. Employers are required by law to remit contributions for their workers. PAYE (Pay-As-You-Earn) is income tax deducted from employees’ salaries and passed to the tax authority.
FFA Explainer:
Statutory obligations such as NSSA, ZIMDEF and PAYE are not optional. When entities delay these payments, they expose workers to risk, attract penalties, and signal cashflow stress. For a regulator, falling behind on these obligations also raises ethical and governance concerns.
The audit also found that AMA had not cleared an outstanding foreign liability first raised in earlier reports.
“The Authority still has an outstanding foreign liability of equivalent to ZWG2.3 million,” the report said.
The Auditor-General did not name the creditor in the published findings, nor the age of the liability. Those questions were put directly to AMA by the reporter, but the authority had not answered by the time of publication.
Regulator Silent As Questions Mount
For an authority seeking to position itself as a modern, data-driven and farmer-centred market regulator by 2030, the silence has been striking.
When contacted for comment, AMA chief executive Alice Mapfiza referred questions to the authority’s Marketing and Public Relations Manager, Tina Nleya. Reached by phone on Tuesday, Nleya said she was in a meeting and would need to consult the finance team.
“I am in a meeting. This is something I’d have to find out from the Finance team. I will get back to you when I find out,” Nleya said.
She did not call back. Subsequent calls to her went unanswered, and follow-up questions sent to her and to Mapfiza also drew no response.
AMA was asked to disclose how much it currently owes NSSA and ZIMDEF, the timeline for clearing those arrears, and the status of its PAYE payment plan. The authority was also asked whether it had quantified and corrected the financial impact of the earlier property, plant and equipment misstatement, and whether the 2024 revaluation had fully resolved that accounting problem.
Further questions focused on the outstanding foreign liability: the identity of the creditor, the cause of the debt, how long it had been on the books, and what measures were being taken to clear it. No substantive response had been received by publication.
Why Farmers Should Care About AMA’s Books
On the surface, accounting standards and statutory arrears may feel far removed from the daily reality of a farmer in Makoni, Gokwe or Mwenezi, worrying about fertiliser prices, transport costs or whether a buyer will honour a contract.
Yet AMA’s ability to regulate markets, licence buyers, manage strategic information and support value chain development rests on its own financial health and governance. A regulator that can’t keep its own statutory payments up to date, or present clean, reliable accounts, risks losing the confidence of Treasury, lenders and development partners.
That, in turn, can limit its capacity to support the kinds of programmes that smallholders need – from transparent market information systems to orderly commodity exchange arrangements and improved contract farming oversight.
In Mazowe district, for example, tomato and maize farmers told Farm Future Africa earlier this year that they rely heavily on fair, predictable markets when planning what to plant and how much to invest. AMA’s role in licensing buyers and shaping market rules directly affects them, even if they never walk into AMA’s offices in Harare.
Government agricultural policy under NDS1 emphasises efficient, inclusive value chains and stronger institutions. AMA is central to that vision. Weak financial controls at the authority create a risk that some of these ambitions stall, or that farmers lose faith in formal markets and retreat to side deals that leave them vulnerable.
Governance, Trust And Agenda 2063
At continental level, the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the Malabo commitments call for sound institutions and transparent management of public resources as part of agricultural transformation. Zimbabwe’s own efforts to align with those goals depend on regulators such as AMA being able to demonstrate clean governance.
Sound financial management is not just about pleasing auditors. It affects how quickly a regulator can pay service providers, maintain ICT systems, carry out farmer outreach, and deploy inspectors to enforce fair trading rules.
The Auditor-General’s office has, over the years, flagged similar issues across a number of public entities – from unresolved prior-year misstatements to arrears on statutory obligations. Observers say consistent follow-up and remedial action are essential if these findings are to translate into better services on the ground.
FFA Explainer:
A qualified audit opinion means the auditor believes the financial statements are fairly presented except for specific areas of concern. It’s a warning sign. A clean (unqualified) opinion signals that the accounts meet the required standards in all material respects.
For AMA, the qualified opinion does not allege fraud. But it does highlight systemic weaknesses: failure to correct known misstatements on time, delays in meeting legal obligations, and unresolved foreign debt.
Room For Reform, If AMA Grabs It
The authority has already shown that it can respond to audit pressure. The 2024 asset revaluation and separation of land and buildings addressed two of four prior findings. That suggests capacity to fix problems when they are prioritised.
The unresolved issues – statutory arrears and late payment of creditors – go beyond technical accounting. They speak to cashflow management, internal controls and, ultimately, leadership choices about which bills to pay first.
For farmers, what happens next will matter. If AMA uses the Auditor-General’s report as a springboard for reform, tightens its financial controls and clears its arrears, it could emerge stronger and more credible. That would support its ambition to be a data-driven, farmer-centred regulator by 2030 and help build fairer markets for smallholders across Zimbabwe.
If the findings are ignored, the risk grows that trust in formal markets erodes, and that the goals of NDS1 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals on zero hunger and decent work drift further from reach.
On a good season in Hwedza, when maize cobs bend low and soya pods hang full, farmers already juggle weather risks, rising input costs and transport headaches. They shouldn’t have to worry whether the institutions meant to keep their markets fair can balance their own books.
For now, AMA’s phones may be quiet. The questions raised by the Auditor-General’s report are not.
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