Treasury says it is processing salaries for suspended employees of Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc).

The development follows closure of the Statutory Corporation in August this year and sending of staff on paid leave.

“For over two years we have been in government, we have been analyzing best ways of restructuring this institution and my ministry together with other shareholders of Admarc has concluded that Admarc’s failure to tick and bring the desired results is attributed to numerous factors,” said the then agriculture minister, Lobin Lowe.

However, Yoneco FM understands that the suspended employees have not been receiving their salaries for the past two months since sent on leave.

Commenting on the matter, Secretary to the Treasury (ST) Macdonald Mafuta Mwale said government is aware that the workers are yet to receive their salaries and processes are currently underway to facilitate the payment.

He said: “They haven’t received a penny since they were sent home because the letter to me requesting for payment of two months salary came from agriculture was written on 7 November 2022.

“As of yesterday, my team has requested, has gone through the processes we normally do, we didn’t had this money in the budget, therefore we have to ask for extra budget.”

Chairperson for the Parliamentary Committee on Budget Gladys Ganda attributed the challenge to nonprocedural closure and restructing of Admarc.

She said: “It has come out clearly that the closure did not follow the right procedures, because you have heard from the ST, who is a key shareholder, who owns 99 percent of company and he was bypassed.

“Probably, the restructuring wasn’t handled very well, the Ministry errored probably in that restructure so we have gotten the information, at the end of the day the committee will sit down and make a determination because it’s clear the restructuring didn’t go the right way.”

According to Mwale, extra budget has to be approved by the minister and the process is currently underway.