KAYANZA, December 24th (ABP) – The shortage of fuel oil has had a real negative impact on tea production at the Rwegura tea complex in Kayanza province. The fuel quota allocated to this tea factory has been reduced from 15,000 liters per month to 4,000 liters, at a rate of 1,000 liters per week.
The manager of the complex, Mr. Richard Nahayo, regrets that the fuel shortage has paralyzed the usual tea leaf picking schedule. He said that this activity which was carried out at least between 9 and 12 days, or three times a month, has been reduced to only once a month, or only 34% of the production that should be achieved. “We use this weekly quota between two and three days and we try to collect the tea production belonging to the factory,” he said, adding that, in this case, the vehicles are unable to transport the production from the village areas.
For their part, the tea growers said they no longer know which way to turn to, because the income from the sale of tea leaves has dropped significantly. They fear coming into conflict with the microfinance institutions that lent them money for the maintenance of the fields as reported by the representative of the tea growers from Rwegura County.
Faced with this situation, he asks the competent authorities to do everything possible to ensure that this tea complex receives the quantity of fuel oil necessary to properly collect the production. To that end, he indicated that the fuel shortage has affected not only the tea growers but also the State and the OTB in general. It is worth mentioning that the Rwegura tea complex processes tea leaves from 1,890 hectares belonging to the villagers and 620 hectares belonging to the said complex.