State grain marketer – Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) says it needs K400 billion to finance its turnaround strategy.

Admarc Board Chairperson Alexander Kusamba Dzonzi disclosed this yesterday at Parliament Building in Lilongwe during a meeting with the Parliamentary Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism.

According to Kusamba Dzonzi, Admarc needs to start serving Malawians as it used to be.

He said: “To make Admarc functional, Admarc that can serve any Malawian and deliver to government dividends we need that, but we don’t need that at one goal no, because we have ranked our projects.”

The Board Chairperson also said Admarc will lay-off over 3, 122 employees as part of its restructuring process.

“I don’t want you to you to call it like losing jobs but it’s like we are washing a dirty cloth and definitely the dirty has to go.

“Admarc is run on taxpayers’ money, so up until now, the situation has been that the taxpayers have been paying employees of Admarc who were not discharging their services and not bringing any revenue,” Kusamba Dzonzi said.

Commenting on the development, the Committee’s Chairperson Simplex Chithyola Banda said the corporation needs to follow all due labour laws on the restructuring process.

“I think Admarc will follow all the due processes labour laws when addressing issues of employment, but the general public should know that Admarc has established work structure of 1, 500 but currently it employs of over 4, 000 obviously some will be called, some might not be called,” Banda said.

Admarc has 4,687 employees and the restructuring process is expected to take three-months period.

End last month, Minister responsible for Agriculture Lobin Lowe suspended all Admarc services except social services until further notice and sent all employees on paid leave except those that will be communicated to.