A ZANU PF district chairperson and councillor in Bulilima Rural District Council (RDC) has been accused of stealing farming inputs meant for the Pfumvudza/Intwasa programme.
Zoolakes Nyathi, who is ward 10 councillor for Bambadzi
area in Bulilima, is alleged to have diverted 350kg maize seed and 358 bags of
fertilizer to his shop for resale.
The Pfumvudza concept was introduced by government to
promote conservation farming techniques, and it involves the use of small plots
on smallholder farms and applying the correct agronomic practices for higher
returns.
It also targets small-scale farmers across the eight rural
provinces in the country, whereby they have been given the target to produce
1,8 million tonnes of cereals and 360 000 tonnes of oil seeds in the
forthcoming summer cropping season.
Bulilima district Agritex officer Peter Masoja said Nyathi
collected the inputs from a Grain Marketing Board storage facility in Plumtree
without the knowledge of the Agritex officer stationed there, thus acting
unlawfully.
“The keys to the storeroom are kept by the councillor’s
wife and the councillor. I have already informed Agricultural Extension
officers on the theft of inputs,” Masoja said.
“When the councillor’s wife was asked about the shortfall,
she professed ignorance. The councillor was not there in both incidences. There
is need for the councillor to be brought to book and, therefore, we will be
conducting further investigations,” he said.
Masoja said Agritex supervisors would now do a physical
check of all inputs in stock to verify if there were any households that
received them from Nyathi.
“When I phoned the councillor (Nyathi), he admitted that he
did take the inputs and he claimed that he ferried them to the next
distribution point in Jutshume to distribute them to the community. But on his
way to Jutshume, he claimed that he received a message that a family member had
died and had to deliver the inputs to his homestead hoping that after the
funeral, he would then deliver them to the intended beneficiaries,” Masoja
said.
Nyathi denied the allegations, accusing Masoja of lying.
“Inputs are delivered at one place, at the centre of the
ward. This is because the ward has three schools which are far from each other.
People saw us loading a truck with inputs and they thought that we were going
to sell them,” Nyathi said.
“The Agritex guys called me and came twice and they saw
that nothing was missing. That is misguided and wrong information. In fact, it
is character defamation because nothing was stolen or is missing.”
He said the people who reported were now refusing to come
out. We want to look for these people because this is serious character
defamation,” he said. Newsday
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