Arda workers go for seven months unpaid

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DUMISANI Nkomo has since 1990 never worked anywhere else, but at the government-owned Arda Balu Estate, a few kilometres from Bulawayo.

DUMISANI Nkomo has since 1990 never worked anywhere else, but at the government-owned Agricultural Rural development Agency (Arda) Balu Estate, a few kilometres from Bulawayo.

NQOBANI NDLOVU

For 23 years, Nkomo has seen good times roll at the estate, while trying times have been “one of those passing moments”.

Hope — and just hope — has helped him and his colleagues endure those trying times, but never “has he experienced the 2013 suffering”, he told Southern Eye.

“This year has been the worst since I joined Arda Balu Estate,” Moyo, who is also the workers’ committee chairperson, said.

“We are like a wife who endures all the abuse and resultant suffering in a marriage, for the sake of the kids.

“We are enduring all this suffering with the hope that things would change for the best.”

Arda Balu Estate is one of the 78 struggling State-owned enterprises which, among others, include Air Zimbabwe, NetOne, TelOne, the Cold Storage Company, Agribank and the National Railways of Zimbabwe.

Since January, Arda Balu estate employees have not been paid their salaries in full – in fact, they claim to be given anything below $50 at irregular intervals.

As recently as last month, management at the estate reportedly gave them two bags of wheat to sell and feed their families.

The sorry state of affairs at the estate is hard to fathom.

Arda Balu used to generate thousands of dollars through various agricultural activities, such as horticulture, beef and dairy farming, summer and winter crop cultivation and tea production. But now — vast tracks of land lie underutilised.

“We are hoping that one day we will be able to get our salaries,” he said. “We love Arda, this has been our life. We hope things will change.”

While Nkomo and some of his colleagues vow to fight on with no salaries, other employees have quit out of frustration, to be gold panners at nearby mines.

“It is dangerous. We face constant arrests, but at least its better, we can survive,” Samuel Nkomo, a former employee at the estate said. “Sometimes we sweat for nothing, but it’s different because a week never passes without us getting something from gold panning.” Arda employees told Southern Eye during a recent visit to the area the government-owned farm is a shadow of its former self — with no farming machinery and activity to talk about.

“They should just give us that land. It’s hard to understand why the estate is failing to produce like in those years gone by,” an employee who refused to be named, said.

John Mangani, the Arda Balu estate manager declined to comment on the matter, but a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the estate would require huge funding to return it to its former glory.

A number of broken down machines, among them combine harvesters, lie idle.

Employees claimed some of the machinery at the estate was looted by Zanu PF politicians at the height of the farm invasions.

They said affairs at the estate started changing at the height of the agrarian revolution that President Robert Mugabe defended as necessary to empower blacks who had been given barren lands by the colonial regime.

The agrarian reform added woes to the estate as landless war veterans invaded the area, stealing farm produce, dairy cattle and letting their cattle graze one plantations.

The war veterans were also accused of causing land degradation, digging for gold at the paddocks and forcing the organisation to transfer its cattle to Nyamandlovu’s Arda’s Sedgewick Farm. William Mbona, the general manager of Arda farms countrywide requested questions via e-mail, but did not respond.

MDC-T deputy organising secretary Abednico Bhebhe, blamed government for the collapse of Arda farms countrywide, saying his party – once in government – will prioritise reviving the estates and agriculture in general.

Bhebhe asked how an MDC-T government would revive the farms, said the party would fund agricultural revival through proceeds from natural resources.

“We will set up a land commission that will be tasked with addressing these issues,” he said.

“The commission will make sure that all underutilised land and commercial land is made profitable and fully utilised for the country to ensure food security.”

Arda board chairman Basil Nyabadza was once quoted in the Press saying the authority was seeking strategic partners to capacitate estates countrywide.

He could not be reached for comment.