PRIME Minister Kassim Majaliwa has directed the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure that it clears payments to the remaining cashew nut farmers who sold their produce in the 2018\/2019 season.<\/p>\n
He said that so far, more than 96 per cent of cashew farmers who sold the cash crop in the last season have been verified and paid.<\/p>\n
The PM said that the ministry should ensure that the remaining 3 per cent of cashew nut farmers are verified and paid their money.<\/p>\n
Mr Majaliwa issued the directives on Friday in his meeting with cashew farmers from Ruangwa, Masasi and Tandahimba.<\/p>\n
After listening to various concerns raised by farmers, Mr Majaliwa urged them to continue being patient as the government was striving to clear their dues.<\/p>\n
“The fifth phase government under the leadership of President John Magufuli is very cautious and therefore no-one will be denied payments,” he said.<\/p>\n
In another development, the premier has called upon members of cooperative societies to report to the government whenever they saw that things were not going well.<\/p>\n
He directed regional and district commissioners to hold accountable cooperative leaders who would fail to execute their duties as required.<\/p>\n
For their part, the farmers expressed gratitude to the government for listening to their concerns and finding solutions.<\/p>\n
One of the farmers, Mariam Mganda, saluted Mr Majaliwa for his readiness to listen to them because he had given them hope of being paid their money.<\/p>\n
In September last year, the government assured cashew nut farmers that their payments would be cleared before the onset of the new season.<\/p>\n
The Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Mr Omary Mgumba, allayed farmers\u2019 fears over unpaid cashew nut deliveries, saying their payments would be cleared before the beginning of the next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government pledge to buy all cashewnut is still on and be assured that before the start of the season, all pending payments will be paid,\u201d said Mr Mgumba.<\/p>\n
In October 2018, President John Magufuli ordered procurement of all the cash crop directly from farmers at 3,300\/- per kilogramme by the government through the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB).<\/p>\n
The decision came after the crop dealers failed to work on the presidential directive to buy the crop at a minimum 3,000\/- per kilo against 1,550\/- the Cashewnut Board of Tanzania (CBT) recommended.<\/p>\n
President Magufuli stressed that the good prices would improve the welfare of farmers and enable them to buy farm inputs and boost productivity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PRIME Minister Kassim Majaliwa has directed the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure that it clears payments to the remaining cashew nut farmers who sold their produce in the 2018\/2019 season. He said that so far, more than 96 per cent of cashew farmers who sold the cash crop in the last season have been verified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":1421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,8,12],"tags":[53,138,854],"class_list":["post-1420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-homepage-english","category-policy","tag-kassim-majaliwa","tag-prime-minister","tag-tadb"],"yoast_head":"\n