The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Monday, May 24, 1993 — Communal farmers in Beitbridge East have expressed dissatisfaction at the way cattle for a livestock restocking exercise funded by the Agricultural Finance Corporation are being allocated to households.

The farmers are complaining about the quality of the cattle the Cold Storage Commission is supplying and the price which they have to pay for the animals.

Under an agreement with the AFC each household was to get two heifers at $1 200 each, including transport costs. Instead they were now being supplied with cows, some as old as eight years at the same price, the farmers complained.

They claimed that some of the cattle were dying before they reached their homes and that they were not given the chance to choose the cattle they wished to purchase.

“We are not happy with what is going on because when we registered under the scheme we were assured that we would get heifers. We were made to sign invoices from the CSC before viewing the cattle we were supposed to get. It turned out later that CSC personnel allocated cattle to people without their consent because the numbers on the cattle you got were actually printed on the invoices,” said an irate Mr Chengedzeni Moyo of Chimnanga area.

Contacted for comment, a CSC spokesman referred all questions to the AFC. The District Administrator for Beitbridge, Mr Mbonisi Ncube, said he had not received any complaints from the communal farmers.

He said he had been informed that the cattle would be delivered to the areas concerned.

Mr Moyo claimed that some of the cattle died before they reached their destination because of the long distances they had to be transported. Some cattle come from as far as Chikwarakwara, some 118km away.