Agriculture department still owes local tractor owners
The department assures the affected tractor owners that their payments will be proscessed in due course
BURGERSFORT- This summer hundreds of community members in Sekhukhune district benefited from the Fetsa Tlala food production initiative.
The programme contracted tractor owners locally to plough all underutilised agricultural land for the use of community members in order to eradicate poverty.
It was recently revealed that the Limpopo Department of Agriculture owes owners of tractors more than R2 million. According to a report by SABC news radio station (Thobela FM). More than 300 tractors’ owners and drivers are affected.
Speaking to Steelburger/Lydenburg News, spokesman for the department, Mr Selby Makgotho, says the delays in payments were due to verification of the ploughed fields and technical problems in the finance section.
Makgotho however assured the affected parties that their payments would be processed in due course.
“The issue of outstanding payment was attributed to a number of factors, such as the verification of the sites ploughed and planted, but also the department payment section also experienced the technical challenges while processing payment for those whose work was verified.”
He added the department is apologising to hundreds of tractors owners and drivers in the province about the delay in the outstanding payments.
“We’re aware that they didn’t enjoy their festive season, but we take full responsibility and we’ll ensure that as a matter of extreme urgency the matter is resolved.”
The Fetsa Tlala initiative was launched by the president Mr Jacob Zuma last year October. During the launch it was announced that R2 billion was going to be made available for the programme. The community members were also given seeds by the department.
