About 82 cotton farmers who sold their cotton to Dunavant company in Kalumwange resettlement scheme in Kaoma district of Western province have requested government to intervene so that they are paid their monies.
Speaking on behalf of other cotton farmers today, Reuben Chingumbe and Ignatius Nalukui said that 82 cotton farmers sold about 362 bales of cotton worth over K30 million to Dunavant in August this year but up to now they have not yet been paid.
Mr Chingumbe said cotton farmers were finding it difficult to go about their usual lives without money as the company mandated to buy cotton has not fulfilled its obligations as agreed during the time of buying the produce.
Meanwhile, Chingumbe said that all the 362 bales of cotton that were bought by Dunavant in the resettlement, about 31 metric tonnes were all gutted by fire by unknown people at Dunavant depot immediately after the company bought the cotton.
Mr Chingumbe said the cotton bales were burnt to ashes in the inferno between 01:00 hours and 02:00 hours on August 26, this year and the matter was reported to Kaoma police station.
He complained that from the time the cotton bales were burnt, no officer from the company came to inspect the depot in order to ascertain the damage, the situation he described as very unfortunate.
Mr Chingumbe said that cotton farmers in the resettlement have lost hope and wanted government interventions so that they are paid their money.
And Kaoma police-officer-in-charge Rodgers Chiwila when contacted for a comment said the matter was still under investigations between the District Agricultural Officer (DACO), Obriel Chanda and the police.
Mr Chiwila said that at the moment no suspects have been arrested.
And further comments from Dunavant management in Mumbwa district proved futile at press time.
ZANIS
Wow, very unfortunate situation
even private companies now seem to be into donchi kubeba
Forgive me bloggers, but there is a commonly recurrent grammatical error I have noticed on LT. This headline should read ‘Cotton farmers appeal for payments’, i.e. ‘appeal’, NOT ‘appeals’. It seems our journalists have a problem with this construct. If only one farmer had appealed, the correct word would have been ‘appeals’ then. Sorry for my being pedantic.
Apparently, this is how they imagine correct grammar should be. Conversation with this writer and the editor must be stunted , I shudder at the thought.
This is a very unfortunate situation. Who or what caused the fire? Negligence by the depot managers? All the same, farmers should be paid their money soonest. They need that money to buy inputs for this planting season. lets not kill their moral.