Chiredzi based sugar milling company Tongaat Hullet is embroiled in dispute with local farmers over failure to pay millions of dollars for sugarcane delivered.
Commercial Sugarcane Producers Association chairperson Tawanda Mafurutu said the company was attributing the failure to the on- going strike by its workers who are also demanding a pay rise.
“The company must address the problems with employees but that has nothing to do with us farmers. Besides, Tongaat Hullet was given 14 days notice of the strike in terms of the law. Why did it not put measures in place to ensure that sugarcane growers were paid as agreed?” he asked.
About 16 000 employees from Tongaat Hullet in Chiredzi have gone on strike demanding a salary increment.
The workers want the minimum wage to be increased to $350 from $170 per month which is similar to the company’s subsidiaries in Swaziland, South Africa and Mozambique.
Mafurutu said sugarcane farmers desperately need the money owed to them to support their operations.
“We cannot take what Tongaat Hullet is saying that it cannot pay us because the workers are on strike. We urge Tongaat to pay us for the crop we delivered.
“Without this payment, operations on the farms will come to a halt. We need the money to pay our own workers as well as buying inputs,” he added.
Normally, farmers get a part payment for their deliveries and then the remainder is paid at the end of the year, but nothing has been disbursed so far.
Tongaat has since said it is aiming for a 16, 2 percent increase in active indigenous private farmers supplying it with sugarcane in Zimbabwe by the 2017 /18 season.
The company said the initiative to empower communities in the country should see growers increasing from the current 857 to 1 023.
Tongaat Hullet Zimbabwe sugar operations consist of Triangle and a 50.3 percent stake in Hippo Valley Estates, representing a combined sugar milling capacity of more than 640 000 tonnes. — New Ziana.