Tanzania: How Agents Steal From Cotton Farmers

The Weighing and Measures Agency (WMA) has alerted cotton farmers in the Lake Zone against unscrupulous agents who tamper with weighing scales.

WMA director of technical services Stella Kahwa said the agency found out that many agents had tampered with weighing devices. Ms Kahwa said out of 191 weighing scales inspected by the agency in in 2014 and 2015 74 had been tampered with.

She added that 839 agents hid their weighing scales to avoid the inspection raising fears that cotton farmers could be victims of an understated problem.

“Farmers were losing up to 20 kilogrammes for every 100 kgs, to agents,” said Ms Kahwa, while speaking to The Citizen on Thursday.

The survey was conducted in Simiyu, Shinyanga, Geita, Mwanza and Simiyu regions.

Credit: All Africa