Fulani herdsmen pay fines to farmers

Funsi (UW), Dec. 19,GNA - Fulani herdsmen in the Sissala area of the Wa East District of the Upper West region have paid more than five hundred Ghana cedis as fines to farmers in the area for destroying farms with their cattle.

The payments were effected after arbitration between the herdsmen and affected farmers with the Unit Committees and opinion leaders acting as the arbitrators.

Mr. Battong Dalugu, a retired civil servant, who is also a farmer and an opinion leader in the community, explaining the rationale for the fines to the Ghana News Agency at Funsi, said it had become impossible to drive the alien herdsmen and their cattle away from the area due what he termed as "ECOWAS Protocol". According to him, the use of the fines to amicably settle disputes between the farmers and the alien herdsmen was in their judgment, a better way of protecting the rights of both the farmers and the Fulani herdsmen alike.

Despite the imposition of these fines, some farmers in the area are calling for the total expulsion of the Fulani herdsmen and their cattle from the area because of the havoc their cattle were wrecking on their farms.