The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Monday, March 16, 1993 — Nyamandlovu farmers have expressed disappointment that the Bulawayo City Council failed to invite them to the commissioning of the Nyamandlovu pipeline last week.

The chairman of the 60-strong Nyamandlovu Farmers’ Association, Mr James Taylor, said the farmers planned to take up the matter next month.

“They had far more important people to invite than us. We were just not invited and we are just disappointed that they did not invite us”, Mr Taylor said.

Bulawayo Deputy Town Clerk, Mr Moffat Ndlovu, said the council sent batches of cards to Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union and to the Commercial Farmers’ Union to invite members at their own discretion.

He said the cards could not be sent to individual farmers because the occasion was organised in haste. “Did they send the cards to Lalapansi, Gwanda, or do they know where we live?,” asked Mr Taylor.

An irate farmer and city hotelier had this to say on hearing that cards were sent through the farmers’ unions: “When they wanted to pump water they went around by car to see all the farmers but now it is expensive for them to send a piece of paper to the farms?”

Meanwhile, Mr Ndlovu said the council did not need any licence to pump water from the aquifer as council was pumping water only from government farms.