The Tobacco Commission (TC) says it has licensed 13 transporters associations for the 2020 tobacco marketing season in accordance with Section 63 of the new Tobacco Industry Act of 2019.

Following the development, TC Corporate Planning and Development Manager Hellings Nasoni advised stakeholders to work with the licensed transporters that the institution has vetted. According to Nasoni, no person shall deduct any fee or any other sum from a farmer other than the maximum transport rate published by the commission and payable to the licensed transporter, adding that any person who contravenes the provision shall on conviction, be liable to a fine of K10 million and to imprisonment for five years.

On the other hand of the part of the Act reads, “where a grower willfully produces excess tobacco in contravention of his production quota or the contractual agreement with his buyer, as the case may be, the [Tobacco] Commission shall uplift the grower’s production quota and collect three quarters of the proceeds of the excess tobacco and remit the remaining one quarter to the grower”. The clause follows excess amounts of overproduction that have been seen the last market seasons.