Dear Editor
- State-owned Onderstepoort Biological Products sells Foot and Mouth Disease vaccines for more than double the wholesale price to the SA government.
- South African taxpayers would not be incurring this cost if the Agricultural Research Council kept production levels up to demand.
- DA reiterates call for government and private sector collaboration to produce enough vaccines for the local market.
A reply to a written DA parliamentary question by the Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Thoko Didiza, has revealed that the state owned Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP) buys Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccines for 1,201. 73 Pula (R1 682.42) from Botswana and resells them to the South African government for R3 022.21, which is more than double the wholesale price.
What the OBP fails to acknowledge is that the South African taxpayer would not be paying such exorbitant amounts for the vaccines had the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) kept production levels up to meet local demand.
A project to improve the FMD facility was approved in 2014 but work only started recently after many false starts and excuses which delayed the production of vaccines. The fact that it has taken 10 years to get working on this important product, shows that the ANC government is not at all concerned about food security or the concerns raised by farmers.
If anything, the ANC has destroyed the infrastructure of a world class OBP facility by letting institutional decay take root which led to the departure of top talent. The institution is now on life support and unable to meet demand for vaccines in South Africa.
It is simply unconscionable that, for a country with high unemployment and thousands of veterinary graduates with no jobs, the ANC government sees it fit to outsource the production of vaccines to other countries. Despite a willingness by the private sector to partner with government in vaccine production, the ANC government has remained steadfast in protecting OBP’s monopoly.
The DA still reiterates our call that the government must collaborate with the private sector on animal vaccine production by allowing the latter to use some of OBP’s vaccine strains to produce enough vaccines for the local market. Our country’s agriculture sector and food security depend on it.
Regards
Noko Masipa MP
DA Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development
Bloodeater
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Z-Boy
A British man on safari walks into a bar far out in the reaches of a game reserve in Southern Africa, he stays at the bar for a while shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking like a fish, he offer to buy the barkeep a round and since no one else is within 2km of their small oasis of liquor the barkeep obliges. The englishman goes off to the bathroom to have a good old go at the porcelain, he\’s back and ready for a few more whiskeys. He\’s just sat down when suddenly in the distance he hears a scream. He looks over his shoulder and dismisses it as nothing, he turns to the barkeep and orders a drink, takes a sip and hears the scream again. He looks at the barkeep who just shrugs it off. A minute or two later he and the barman hear it again and go outside to take a look. They see a lone figure running towards them screaming, he spots them and lets out a cry, RUN!!!!! HE\”S COMING!!!!!
The barkeep and the Englishman both look at the terrified bedraggled sight before them, and try to calm him down, but he\’s completely inconsolable. They give him water and finally manage to get a word out of him but he struggles free from their grasp and run away screaming.
A few minutes later the same thing happens with a whole group of men running in and screaming, he\’s coming, he\’s coming the barkeep grabs hold of one of the men as he tries to sprint past the bar and tries to get information out of him, again no response other than terrified gibberish.
The barkeep and his customer are starting to get worried, they start to pack up before another group of horrified natives run up to the bar most of them flee but one tries to hide behind the bar, the barkeep pulls out a shotgun and points it at the terrified man\’s face, finally managing to coax some words out of him. \”He\’s coming for us, Vernon Koekemoer is coming for us, we have to hide!!! We have to get out of here.\” He gets up and tries to run but the barkeep grabs him, feeling trapped in a panic he grabs the barkeeps shotgun and blows his own head off. The Englishman and the barkeep look at each other starting to really panic now.
They look out of the window and off in the distance they see a tornado coming towards the bar, at the bottom of the tornado they see the hugest beast of a man they have ever seen, as he gets closer they spot that he is riding a rhinocerous and using a crocodile as a riding whip, with each smack of the crocodile across the back of the rhino the louder is screams and the faster it runs, the tornado following it getting ever larger.
The 2 look at each other and start to fortify their position, they\’ve got a gun and they\’re waaay to drunk to run, so they start piling bar stool and tables and anything they can get their hands on to make sure they\’ll be safe when he arrives. They\’re not gonna make it, they can see the man slowing down his rhino, by now the crocodile is nothing but reptile paste on the bruised rump of the half dead rhino, the rhino drops down dead from exhaustion and crashes to the ground right outside the bar the tornado loses it\’s last breath in a cloud of dust as the huge man crashes his way through the make shift barricade and charges up towards the bar where the 2 men have taken shelter, he grabs a bottle of the hardest liquor on the shelf and down the entire litre in 1 gulp, he peers over the bar sobbing and sees the 2 defenders cowering down behind the crates of beer, they look up at the mans\’ face and he stares at them with a look of complete and utter hopelessness, he stares at them for a half second and half screams, half sobs, \”Oh my god what are you still doing here!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!! Vernon Koekemoer is coming!!!!\”