The Sunday News
Mhlupheki Dube Farming Issues
While I would have loved to write a follow up article on egg production because of the excitement the last two articles have generated I felt I should tackle a case of injustice that is meted to livestock farmers and is largely going unchallenged. This is the issue of cattle levies charged by local authorities. There are two types of levies that local authorities charge on cattle transactions and I must hasten to say that they are properly mandated by relevant legislations to do so. The first type of levy is a gazetted percentage of 10.5 percent of the value of the animal being sold. This is broken down into portions for the local authority, auctioneer and the Government graders.
This levy is applied at cattle auctions that are organised by the local authorities and is rightfully charged on buyers. This is not under any contestation as it is properly executed. The second type of levy is the one charged on what councils call private sales and this includes situations where farmers take their animals to urban centres for sell in pursuit of better prices.
This is the levy that this article wishes to interrogate as it is the one that is being incorrectly applied and in some cases with the willing participation of law enforcement agents. Firstly this levy has no gazetted percentage like the one applied in council organised sales. As a result there is no standard figure that is charged as figures vary from one district to the other, from as low as $10/animal to as high as $30/animal.
While the absence of a Government gazetted percentage on private sales has obviously created a lacuna, my axe to grind is not about the figures per se but the subject to which these are applied. While the law about levies is very clear that these are to be charged on the buyers most local authorities are wrongfully and conveniently or is it inconveniently charging it on farmers. This is because most buyers tend to resist the levy and they use all the tricks in the book to evade paying this levy.
Also when farmers try to take their animals into urban centres for sell to abattoirs and butcheries local authorities shy away from the burden of having to follow up their levies to the buyers or they simply do not have mechanisms and capacity to follow up on their levy. What do they do?
They take it out on the weak, the widows, grand mothers and fathers trying to earn some money from their investment.
These are the ones force marched to pay the levy which should be paid by the buyer and they are “advised” to claim their money from the buyer when they know pretty well that buyers will flatly refuse to pay. In some districts local authorities have enlisted services of the police to ensure compliance with paying levy and it doesn’t seem to matter to the police that the levy is wrongfully charged to the poor peasant communal farmer.
Honestly if my mother umaKhumalo is to be forced to pay $30 which she is not supposed to pay add $70 for transporting the animal to Bulawayo, $15 VET permit, what will she get out of that animal? Instead of local authorities taking a cue that the fact that old gogos and khulus will go through all the trouble trying to take animals to markets in Bulawayo, is actually an indictment and a very loud vote of no confidence on their auction sales which are mostly patronised by poverty stricken buyers who have only one thing in their minds, swindle the grannies, local authorities choose instead to punish farmers for seeking better.
Isn’t it about time AMA (Agricultural Marketing Authority) grew teeth and start biting to protect farmers.
The first and obvious step would be to standardise the private buyers levy so that there are no disparities across districts as buyers tend to exploit this by shunning expensive districts, reasonably so. Local authorities should make buyers who wish to purchase cattle in their district, register, sort of a buyer’s inventory.
As part of registration buyers should commit in ink to pay the levy for animals which they buy directly from the district or are brought on to their doorsteps. Failure to comply should ensure buyers are blacklisted and prevented from making any livestock purchases in the district. Council officials need to do some bit of thinking and avoid the temptation of easy solutions.
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Disclaimer
Views expressed in this and other articles are purely personal and should not be misconstrued to represent that of my employer or any organisations or persons that I interact with in my line of work.
