Cibitoke : cessation of activities at OTB Buhoro following lack of electricity and fuel

Since last Thursday, the activities of the Burundi Tea Office in Buhoro in Cibitoke province (Northwestern Burundi) have been paralyzed due to the severe lack of electricity and fuel. The company’s employees are complaining about this cessation of activities. They are calling on the government to quickly resolve this problem. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The absence of electricity and fuel has paralyzed all OTB activities in Buhoro, in Cibitoke province for almost a week.

According to an internal source, the machines are parked and a large part of the staff are forced to stay at home.

“We lack energy to operate the powerful machines and a large part of the engineers, technicians and other workers no longer go to work because they do not have what to do,” regrets a young engineer, recently hired and visibly unhappy.

This situation comes, as an agronomist indicates, at the wrong time since it is the tea picking period.

“The tea is now ripe for all the village plantations and those of the company. The big risk that cannot be ruled out is the drying out of the tea fields which we will not harvest without being able to move on to its processing” insists an agronomist met at the factory’s entry.

The other major challenge concerns the lack of fuel. It has become almost impossible to transport large quantities of tea loaded into trucks bound for the economic capital, due to lack of fuel.

Concerns are beginning to appear among workers who risk not being paid because their salaries are conditioned by the sale of tea, the money from which is also used to run the business.

A pressing appeal is being made to the government to alleviate this problem of both lack of electricity and fuel.

“Failing this, the company will go straight to bankruptcy,” warns an executive within OTB Buhoro.