Farmers urged to play their role in combatting scourge of stock theft

[Nat Quinn]

In a bid to combat the alarming rise of stock theft in Verena in Mpumalanga, acting Mpumalanga Police Commissioner, Major General Zeph Mkhwanazi is urging farmers to play their part by not employing illegal and undocumented foreign nationals for cheap labour.

Major General Mkhwanazi says they have found that when there is an employer-employee dispute then foreign national staff tend to steal the farmer’s stock.

He says tracking of these illegal foreign nationals is difficult since they are not in the Home Affairs system and the workers are aware of this.

He encourages farmers to continuously check and keep count of their stock.

“Because if this is not happening it gives us a big problem. The poor fencing of the camps as well as of the farms brings a lot of problems because we cannot have those stock grazing anywhere. But if they assist us and make sure that it is closed in that way. I think the employment rate is a problem in the province that needs to be looked at to make sure that we control the issue of stock theft. In three years, we are sitting with 2,957 reported cases and that means we have got a serious problem,” he says.

Farmers, business leaders and residents unite to combat stock theft

 

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