The country’s second largest farmer union, Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers (ZCFU), is failing to pay its employees as well as financing its operations due to dwindling donor support, it has been learnt.

Employees who spoke to New Ziana on condition of anonymity said some of them were owed more than $20 000 in salary arrears.

“The union has failed to pay us salaries for some time and it has proved difficult for us to make ends meet. As we speak some former employees who resigned are refusing to surrender union vehicles,” said the employee.

“They are vowing not to return those vehicles until they are paid their salary arrears. Things are not looking good, most technical persons have resigned”.

Another employee said the challenges bedevilling the union started in 2011.

“Things started falling apart two years ago when the European Union grant expired. Since then, we have been waiting and hoping that more funds will come on board, but to date no funds have been availed to the union worsening the status quo,” the employee said.

ZCFU president Mr Wonder Chabikwa confirmed that the union was facing financial challenges.

“Yes there has been a problem which started two years ago and we are working to address that. At one point we failed to pay our workers salaries and we are working to resolve it since we now have few employees we can manage,” he said.

Mr Chabikwa confirmed that the union was not receiving any grants.

“We are only financing operations through union membership fees and levies deducted on produce sold by farmers.”

The Zimbabwe Farmers Union last year at some point also failed to pay salaries owing to financial difficulties. — New Ziana.