{"id":810400,"date":"2025-02-05T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=810400"},"modified":"2025-02-05T12:51:53","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T10:51:53","slug":"john-steenhuisens-missing-r500-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/810400\/john-steenhuisens-missing-r500-million\/","title":{"rendered":"John Steenhuisen’s missing R500 million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen cannot provide details about a forensic audit of his department’s dubious R500 million project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Steenhuisen raised concerns about the Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP) project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP) is a South African state-owned animal vaccine manufacturing company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its mandate is to prevent and control animal diseases that impact food security, human health, and livelihoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It plays a key role in South Africa in preventing and controlling animal diseases that impact food security, human health, and livelihoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facility must ensure vaccine affordability and accessibility through varied distribution channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, many agricultural community members have raised concerns about the OBP not fulfilling its mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project\u2019s failure has left South Africa\u2019s agricultural sector with a huge shortage of much-needed vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company is also under fire for its accounting standards and for money that is either missing or unaccounted for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2023 and 2024 financial years, Onderstepoort Biological Products received a qualified audit from the Auditor General (AG).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its latest annual report, the AG said it could not obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to substantiate certain amounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Auditor General previously revealed that a large portion of a grant given to Onderstepoort Biological Products in 2013 was unspent and unaccounted for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AG further highlighted that Onderstepoort Biological Products is not following basic auditing standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August 2024, Steenhuisen said he remained very concerned about the project, which has been given R500 million to revamp the facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA large part of the R500 million went missing and is unaccounted for,\u201d he said. He added that a forensic audit would help reveal where the money went and how it was spent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DA said it \u201cwelcomed the decisive action being taken by Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen to finally institute a forensic audit\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe DA stands with members of the agricultural community in raising our total dissatisfaction with OBP not fulfilling its mandate,\u201d the DA\u2019s Willie Aucamp said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is clear that something untoward is going on at OBP, and this investigation into OBP is therefore welcomed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis development is a crucial step toward restoring integrity and accountability within the sector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, five months after Steenhuisen said he would launch the forensic audit, there has been no feedback on the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BusinessTech asked Steenhuisen for an update on the investigation, but he could not provide any details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All his spokesperson could say was, \u201cWe will get back to you as soon as we receive the report back\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza takes on Steenhuisen<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Thoko Didiza<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is unclear whether former Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza’s aggression about the issue influenced the forensic audit or Steenhuisen\u2019s silence about the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Steenhuisen announced his concerns about the Onderstepoort Biological Products project, Didiza slated his comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Didiza, who serves as the Speaker of the National Assembly, said that during her tenure, the OBP board and management dealt with this matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added that the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development also addressed the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDetails of this matter will be found in the annual reports of OBP, including the audit report,\u201d Didiza said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA forensic report on the utilisation of some of the funds was done, and it enabled the OBP to take some of the concerns of sub-contracting to the Special Investigative Unit (SIU).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Didiza said Steenhuisen should be cautious about what he communicates on the media, as this could have unintended and disastrous consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she tried to assist Steenhuisen in understanding the intricacies of the department and its entities during the handover process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, she said this effort seemed inadequate and offered her continued assistance with this and other matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Didiza believed it was inappropriate to make definitive statements where investigations are ongoing by law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said it creates an impression that the previous administration did not address these challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen could not provide details about a large part of R500 million that went missing and is unaccounted for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":810409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[21639,20147,21638],"class_list":["post-810400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-agriculture-minister","tag-john-steenhuisen","tag-onderstepoort-biological-products-obp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810400"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":810411,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810400\/revisions\/810411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}