Choppies commits to supporting local farmers
Monday, September 25, 2023 | 900 Views |
Ramachandran PIC: KENNEDY RAMOKONE
The mass grocery retailer is currently working closely with 1,800 local farmers who are actively supplying them with produce and have an additional 200 seasonal ones.
“We have active farmers who supply us with quality produce; the active ones normally supply us every two weeks,” he told BusinessMonitor. “We encourage local production and support small scale farmers and businesses whether it is dairy, manufacturing, milling, agriculture or any other sector.” Choppies’ initiative to support farmers, who are finding their feet in farming, comes after government’s bold move to ban the importation of 16 vegetables in January 2022. Since the moratorium on the importation on vegetables such as onion, butternut, tomato, watermelon, carrot, potato, cabbage and ginger, a number of Batswana have gone into farming.
That a single private law firm pocketed P6.5 million for just four cases, out of a total P11.1 million paid for 25 matters, reeks of a system that was not merely disorganised but open to abuse.Bayford has taken a welcome first step by telling the Public Accounts Committee the truth. Now he must act decisively to ensure it never happens again and that any money lost to wrongdoing is recovered.The figures are staggering. Whilst ordinary Batswana...