By Tafanana Kwedu
Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe (THZ) is funding a rebel pressure group to reverse the gains of the Land Reform Program and the ongoing efforts to amend the Sugarcane Production Act of 1964, which among other provisions, gives the sugar producer milling monopoly and other unfair business practices, a source has said.
The pressure group, known as Zimbabwe Sugarcane Growers Collective (ZSGC), has petitioned THZ at the behest of the same company to water down the petition placed with Parliament and to cause confusion among cane growers.
Recently, seven (7) sugarcane farmers associations petitioned Parliament to end the 1964 Act.
The Parliament Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce has since recommended that Government should be represented on all sugar boards and that it should bring more investors in the sugar industry to end the THZ monopoly. The committee also recommended that the National Railways of Zimbabwe, be capacitated to rehabilitate its wagons and locomotives especially in raw cane movement to avoid deterioration of raw sugar quality due to delayed milling among other interventions.
The source said since the inception of the Land Reform, anything that was not covered by the law; the millers would change it willy-nilly prejudicing the farmers.
“For this reason we have embarked on this path, which will lead to the amendment of the key governing Act of the sugar industry to bring in equity, currently, the millers have monopoly over everything.
“While associations are on this, we now also have pressure groups that the millers are now using to create discord, which may distract us from the critical goal of amending the Sugar Production Control Act,” the source said.
The source said it was imprudent for the pressure group to petition THZ when an appeal had been placed with Parliament.
“The problem is, as farmers, it's not wise that having launched a petition with Parliament, we then undermine ourselves by petitioning the same company, which we have reported to a higher authority. It's like appealing from a higher court to a lower court as if to usurp the powers of Parliament,” it said.
As a result of that, the source said, “The millers were even undermining associations by listening to this group and as if responding to positive temporary changes to the extent that farmers are confusing this with victory, but we know that the miller wants to reverse the process of amending the act,” said the source.
The source revealed that in return to its anti-progress antics, the pressure group was awarded with high sugarcane grades upon delivery, cash and other freebies.
ZSGC members include Darlington Chiwa, former Member of Parliament for Chiredzi West, Rtd Col. Chiseva, Faster Gono and Nicholas Ngorima. Chiwa is their Secretary General and kingpin.
The Zimbabwe Sugar Industry has 44 952 hectares. Prior to the land reform programme, THZ owned 75 percent of the productive land. The advent of the land reform in 2000 precipitated major transitions in land ownership, which resulted in the company owning 56 percent of the land, whilst out-growers or indigenous farmers occupied the remaining 44 percent.
This shift in land ownership is believed to have orchestrated a prolonged antagonistic relationship between THZ and out-growers, giving birth to the petition at hand.
Sugarcane is a strategic crop, the second largest foreign currency earner in agriculture after tobacco and is one of the major economic activities in the lowveld.
In light of this and other factors, it is of paramount importance to stop the machinations of the pressure group, which if allowed to continue will reverse the gains of the land reform program, putting the lives of thousands of families, who survive directly or indirectly on the sugar industry at stake.
