AGRICULTURAL NEWS - A survey by Agri SA and its provincial affiliates has started to lift the lid on the extent of corruption that occurred during the allocation and spending of money intended to support drought relief efforts.
Out of about R212 million allocated for drought aid via the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and R463 million by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, Agri SA’s preliminary finding suggests underspending of R210 million.
But this is not the only problem; the bigger issue is figuring out what happened to the R465 million that was spent, because it sure as hell was not all spent on buying feed.
As one of Agri SA’s representatives from the Northern Cape remarked, “Some people did benefit from drought aid that was distributed, but it was not the farmers.”
In some provinces, it appears that about 43% of the money distributed landed in the pockets of service providers.Farmers in North West have reported that one of the service providers selected by the provincial government to purchase and distribute feed cut himself a large enough piece of the pie to buy a brand-new Mercedes Benz.
The owner of the new car is by no means the only fraudster in this story; hopefully the names of all those who unlawfully used drought aid funds for their own benefit will be revealed during investigations.
