Maravi

(HERALD) Bring to book mechanisation abusers

Bring to book mechanisation abusers

Reports of cases of abuse and corruption in the farm mechanisation programme have tainted an otherwise noble empowerment vehicle designed to help in turning around the agriculture sector.

Mechanisation, by simple definition implies the use of machinery, such as tractors, combine harvesters, boom sprayers, discs and planters among other farming equipment, in agricultural production.

In these times of growing shortage of labour as people turn to other ventures like illegal gold panning and diamond mining, the use of machinery in agriculture has become much more important than before.

It is against this background that the Government in its wisdom came up with the Farm Mechanisation Programme that has benefited hundreds of farmers across the country.

Indeed Zimbabwe has become highly mechanised with most farmers now owning at least some piece of farming equipment.

No one can begrudge the Government implementing such a real empowerment programme.

The case of one John Banda and his accomplice, Mordecai Masakwa, believed to be on the run for abusing his position as a senior RBZ manager to allegedly amass an assortment of equipment for himself and his cronies, is indeed a cause for concern.

An audit instigated by the RBZ has so far unearthed crimes committed during the allocation process.

It is mindboggling to hear that some beneficiaries got much more than they needed, others demanded equipment knowing fully well that they did not own a piece of land while some got the machinery for the purpose of making a quick buck.

It is such people who have brought a bad name to a noble programme and to them we say they must not be spared, the law must take its course and we will not shed a tear if they languish in jail.

Those who got equipment and are not using it should cede it to those who have purpose for it and quite honestly there are genuine farmers out there crying out for machinery.

We believe that even those people who got the equipment in the proper way and are not productively using it are as guilty as those who corruptly got it.

There is no doubt about the very good intentions of the programme.

While we will not allow the mistakes made in the allocation process to override the positive contribution of the scheme, we urge the authorities to bring to book all the people who made misrepresentations to acquire the equipment.

We take note of the fact that in any programme of this magnitude, loopholes are inevitable and vultures always hover to exploit them.

There has been a lot of talk about the abuse of equipment and we believe the audit should bring finality to the matter by exposing the bad apples in our midst.

As the results of the audit come out, the nation’s focus should not be on the faults or mistakes of the programme but rather the success scored within the farming communities courtesy of this mammoth scheme.

Let those productively using the equipment continue to do so and those with too much of it lose a bit to others without.

There is no doubt that with mechanisation crop yield per hectare increases immensely and this increase in production will certainly return us to our status as the breadbasket of southern Africa.

Labels: LAND REFORM, MECHANISATION

posted by MrK @ 8:43 PM