GAUTENG. – The DA says the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (GDARD) must clarify what happened to more than 200 000 foot-and-mouth disease vaccine doses, which according to the party have not yet been administered.
Bronwynn Engelbrecht, provincial shadow minister for agriculture and rural development, says the department has confirmed that 540 000 animals have been vaccinated against foot-and-mouth disease. According to the DA, the department received more than 757 340 vaccine doses. According to Engelbrecht, this means that more than 200 000 doses have not been administered. It must now be established how many animals in Gauteng needed to be vaccinated, what will happen to the remaining doses, how many are still usable and when they expire. The DA says it is also unclear how many susceptible animals still need to be vaccinated and whether Gauteng is close to sufficient protection against the disease.
Engelbrecht says an explanation must be provided on how the R63,4 million allocated for foot-and-mouth disease control has been spent. Gauteng's handling of the foot-and-mouth outbreak is being criticised and the DA says the province's response is poor management and insufficiently accountable. The party says Gauteng must now work with private veterinarians, organised agriculture, auction houses, livestock associations and farmers to ensure that animals that need to be vaccinated receive the vaccine.
This article is an automatic English translation of a Nuusflits article originally published in Afrikaans. Read the Afrikaans original.
