CIBITOKE January 17th (ABP) – Cotton farmers in Cibitoke province (north-west of Burundi) are demanding payment for having sold cotton to the Cotton Management Company (COGERCO) for several months.
They waited more than five months, without success, while that money was previously used to buy school materials for their offspring and pay for sowing activities for crop season A, they say, specifying COGERCO officials.to whom they had to resort, asking them to be patient.
Cotton farmers in Buganda commune are more worried than others and deplore that no one among them has yet been paid even though sowing for the following year began last December.
Those from the Rugombo commune, for their part, revealed to the ABP that their colleagues from the Cibitoke zone have already received, for the most part, their payment, but that those from the Rugombo zone remain. Representatives of the latter claim that they had received a promise from the agricultural management that their money would reach them shortly. They waited but in vain, they say.
At that time when the sowing of cotton for the year 2024 should be completed in the first half of January, hesitation is observed in several localities of the cotton reserves in Cibitoke province.
While some say that they have waited too long for their income in vain, others say that the price of 900 BIF per kilogram of cotton is not motivating compared to the sum of 5000 BIF that we have to pay per day. to every cotton plantation worker.
The provincial head of COGERCO in Cibitoke, Mr. Mathieu Bidagana, recognizes the payment claims of those cotton farmers as well-founded. However, he invites them to the sowing of the year which should be finished. It’s better to continue their claims by working, and like that, they will earn money and production for the year 2024, he believes.
He warns those who turn a deaf ear to the supervision of agricultural instructors who ask them to rush with time for sowing. He winks at them, warning that they run the risk of losing their fields which they had to exploit, especially for planting cotton, and which can be allocated to others who agree to collaborate in favor of good yield of cotton cultivation.