JTI Leaf Malawi, one of Malawi’s leading tobacco buyers, has announced that it will distribute 600 bags of top and basal dressing fertilizers and three motorcycles in the ‘Mlimi Wozitsata Ayiphule’ promotion.
JTI Leaf Malawi Director of Corporate Affairs and Communications, Limbani Kakhome, made the announcement at Santhe Trading Centre in Kasungu where the company relaunched the promotion.
Kakhome said the promotion will run from the day tobacco market opened until its closure.
“This promotion falls under the company’s flagship grower incentive program called Mlimi Wozitsata where growers are awarded with different prizes whenever they deliver quality leaf and in quantities agreed in their contracts.
“As a company we do this to incentivize our growers to deliver their contracted volumes of tobacco, on time and within the accepted quality especially in times like these where, as a country we are experiencing dwindling levels of production and heightened levels of intermediate buyer activity or illegal vending of the leaf,” he said.
According to the Kakhome, all JTI growers are eligible and stand a chance to win various prizes including one of three motorcycles, fully registered, 300 bags of NPK fertilizer, 300 bags of Urea fertilizer and numerous consolation prizes and the winners will have their prizes delivered at their respective homes.
“This is one of the programs initiated to incentivize tobacco growers apart from paying them handsomely for quality tobacco that they bring on the floors. We strongly believe in building relationships and contract to grow tobacco is not just about a business transaction, but it’s a long term relationship.
“And part of that is to say, how can we bring in the extra gear the extra to recognize the extra effort tobacco growers do people tend to produce quality? So the me i pulley promotion under the other thing is, is a loyalty program to say a reward program that recognizes the grower in a special way,” he said.
But Kakhome warned tobacco growers against selling their leaf to vendors, stressing that the practice contravenes the country’s laws.
He advised growers to always sell their leaf through the appointed sales floors.
“And we do encourage them to bring the tobacco to the market is for the love of the nation to make sure that tobacco is traded on the appointed markets, because in that way, then the taxes can be put in place the country can in its foreign exchange, but at the same time, the growers are rewarded in a way that they shouldn’t be other than selling to a vendor or to a trader who is not appointed and they will be bought at very low prices compared to selling official markets,” he emphasized.
Michael Mbizi, one of the JTI growers under Chigodi Zone in Santhe, described the promotion as a motivation to the growers, further assuring the company that he will not sell his leaf to the vendors.
