A group of 50 Small scale farmers in Solwezi District today stormed the District Commissioner’s (DCs) office to protest over the non payment of their money by the Food Reserve Agency (FRA).
The emotional and visibly annoyed small scale farmers from the outskirts of the district who have been camping at FRA depot for two weeks complained of delayment by FRA to pay them their money despite selling their maize early.
The farmers said it was not fair for FRA to tell them that it had no money after having travelled from far places and appealed to government to quickly address their plight because some of them were spending nights in the cold as they did not have relatives in town.
They accused FRA officials of not following the first come first serve rule when paying money to farmers.
Solwezi FRA Warehouse Supervisor Elvinard Mupela said the K 1.4 billion released two weeks ago to the district to pay farmers had been exhausted.
He said that so far 402 farmers had been paid their money while those who remained would be paid next week.
Mr Mupela said his office had requested for K1.3 billion from FRA to pay farmers that sold their maize to FRA before 31st July this year to avoid tension.
Solwezi DC Frobisher Fulayi appealed to FRA to release enough money to the district for purchasing of maize because more maize still needed to be bought due to a bumper harvest recorded this year.
Mr Fulayi said small scale farmers contribute greatly to the country’s grain basket hence the need to pay them their money on time, adding that delayment will only discourage them from producing maize next year.
ZANIS
