Farmers pay levies in kind

Zim-farm7
Noah Pito in HURUGWE

HURUNGWE Rural District Council in Mashonaland West  is encouraging farmers to settle their levy arrears with grain. The council said the grain-levy settlement facility was open to communal, A1 and A2 farmers. Council chairman Mr Tichaona Mathew told The Herald that farmers had come up with the payment scheme after facing challenges of selling their grain at competitive prices.

“Although the facility has primarily been created for communal and A1 farmers, we also urge A2 farmers to use the same method should they want to clear their arrears expeditiously,” Clr Mathew said.

“For A2 farmers they simply deliver the grain to the Grain Marketing Board depots using council details.
“When they supply the vouchers to council, their accounts will automatically be credited with the value of the grain delivered before they are also issued with receipts.”

Council has also deployed its officers in the villages to collect grain.
“With communal and A1 farmers our officers are moving around collecting the grain and at the same time issuing them with receipts.
“Council later delivers the maize to the GMB in its name. Mind you, we are using the USUS$390-per tonne that was gazetted by Government in all our transactions in grain, which is also a big advantage to the farmers,” he said.

Clr Mathew claimed the grain/levies facility was very popular in Hurungwe and council has managed to collect 20 tonnes of grain so far.
HRDC chief executive officer Mr Joram Moyo said council would soon take defaulting A2 farmers to court in a bid to recover thousands of dollars it is owed.
It could not be established immediately how much council is owed by the farmers.

“The bulk of defaulters are A2 farmers. It is ironical that they are reluctant to pay the USUS$3 per-hectare-per- annum levy yet they realise thousands of dollars from a single hectare of tobacco.

“We will soon take them to court to recover the debts,” said Mr Moyo.
While A2 farmers are expected to pay US$3 per hectare in levies annually, communal and A1 farmers pay US$5 and US$12 per year respectively.
The minimum size of an A2 farm is 20 hectares and this sums up to US$60 per year.

Big A2 farms in Hurungwe range between 20 to 400 ha in size.
For such farms the owners must pay USUS$1 200 a year in levies.

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