Zokwana held an imbizo at Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal on 7 April. On 9 April, the minister will be at the Magwa tea plantation at Lusikisiki in Eastern Cape, while Cele will visit the Da Gama Legogotu Farm in White River, Mpumalanga, on 9 April.
In an interview with Farmer’s Weeky recently, Eastern Cape Rural Development and Agrarian Reform MEC Mlibo Qoboshiyane said challenges bedeviling the tea estate were systemic.
“There is no governance, no board, no CEO, no CFO, no top management. You can’t run any private enterprise without those key pillars. We need a business rescue plan,” said Qoboshiyane, explaining that his department would spend R66 million to revive the tea estates.
“I have received some key analysis that there’s still potential [in the estates] and that the tea is [still] one of the best,” he said.
The National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) recently wrote to the provincial department committing itself to the rescue plan for the Magwa and Majola tea estates.
In the letter, which Farmer’s Weekly has seen, Nehawu agreed to the appointment of an administrator; agreed that the administrator, who would be there for six months, would be responsible for the management of the estates “in terms of good governance and commercial production principles”; and agreed that future salaries and wages would be “linked to production and sales, rather than fixed costs with no determinable output requirements”.
The Cosatu-affiliated union also agreed on the timelines, establishment of relevant structures and “clear reporting process”.
