Grow hybrid seeds, farmers encouraged
Gweru misses revenue collection target
FARMERS have been encouraged to grow hybrid seeds rather than open pollinated varieties (OPVs) in order to increase yields and market value for their crops.
Speaking on the sidelines of a field day at UCF Farm in Bulawayo on Friday, Prime Seed Company regional sales representative Mr Casim Bisalom said hybrid seeds have better yields.
“As Prime Seed we are encouraging farmers to grow hybrid seeds for a better market and yields. Farming is a business so farmers should not just grow crops for the sake of it. They should make profit. So, for them to make profit they should be able to have the knowledge of the crop management,” he said.
Prime SeedCo is a subsidiary of SeedCo specialising in vegetable seeds offering profitable solutions to farmers.
Mr Bisalom said that OPVs are not resistant to certain diseases and have lower yields.
“Now is the time for farmers to use hybrid seeds rather than OPVs. They are not good as hybrids because they are not resistant to diseases and have got lower yields. We now want them to use hybrid seeds for them to be viable in farming activities,” said Mr Bisalom.
He said farmers should take horticulture seriously as it plays a crucial role for the economic revival of the country.
Meanwhile, Mr Bisalom said despite the economic challenges in the country they have managed to stay in business as their products were always in demand. — @ Kiyaz_Cool GWERU City Council (GCC) missed its revenue collection target by over $2 million from January to July with debts ballooning to $55 million from $47 million, a council report has shown.
During the period the local authority collected over $11 million from the projected $13 million.
According to the council’s financial performance report covering January to July period, the local authority continues to face challenges characterised by continuous increase in debts resulting in failure to carry out planned activities in the budget and to pay suppliers.
“Council continues to face financial challenges characterised by continuous increase in debtors from $47 992 797 to $55 678 533. This is an increase of $7 715 736. This has resulted in our creditors reaching unprecedented levels of $40 882 002.
“Our objective is to collect $23 000 000 by December 31, 2017 and this translates to $13 416 667 for the seven months to July 2017. Actual collections as at July 31 were $11 250 111 giving an adverse variance of $2 166 556. Hence concerted efforts are required to collect the shortfall in the remaining months of the year,” reads part of the report.
“The revenue collection target is also depressed due to the fact that there are certain lines that were expected to contribute to council coffers but the revenue lines are stalled due to pending legal hurdles ($98 705), Zesa ($23 000 000). Council is in four months’ salary arrears and the staff does not have adequate protective clothing due to financial challenges.”
The council has introduced an SMS platform to send out bills to consumers in an effort to move away from printing physical statements. It said the major challenge with this model was to get mobile numbers from clients. So far the local authority has only managed to collect 700 cell phone numbers out of 25 000 clients.
The report states that constrained revenue inflows has crowded out service delivery as most of the revenue collected was channelled towards fixed costs, the major one being employee costs. Manpower costs account for 63 percent of total expenditure.
“There is a need to bring the ratio to be within the recommended 30:70 ratio. Sundry payments used 30.81 percent of the collections of which the major items were electricity $499 160, water and sewer repairs $232 532, vehicle repairs $181 505, pensions $122 336, travel and assistance $119 734, purchase of pick-up trucks $100 380, legal fees $98 705, telephone $84 965, bank charges $54 155, conferences $56 320, councillors allowances $51 340, insurance $32 468,” reads the report.