Johannesburg - Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Senzeni Zokwana has ploughed millions of taxpayers’ money into a failed state-owned farm that should have been shut down years ago.
Ncera Farms, which had been “problematic since day one”, is situated a few kilometres from East London Airport in the Eastern Cape.
The farm was established to develop the capacity of smallholder farmers in the Ncera district. Instead, rogue employees of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries allegedly orchestrated a network and went on “a wholesale looting of assets and farming funding” at the farm, which brought it to its knees.
Auditing firm KPMG instituted a forensic investigation into the farm in 2010, and presented a damning report on the findings to the parliamentary portfolio committee on agriculture, forestry and fisheries in 2013. The committee questioned the farm's viability, saying it offered no value for money and should be closed.
This is according to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG), a website providing information on the country’s parliamentary committee proceedings.
It said the department had failed to develop proper mechanisms to turn around the situation at Ncera Farms, which posted a R22 million accumulated deficit in the 2004/2005 financial year. The figure rose to R23.8m in the following financial year.
Without providing any reasons, Zokwana announced during his budget vote speech in Parliament last week that he had allocated R5.935m to the controversial farm.
A further R788.1m had been allocated for the department’s administration for the 2016/2017 budget.
Zokwana hails from the Eastern Cape and is national chairman of the SACP.
According to the minutes of a meeting between the committee and the farm's representatives on May 16 2013, ANC MP Salamuddi Abram expressed concern that the farm had been deteriorating for many years, noting there had been “a wholesale looting of assets and farming funding at Ncera”.
The smallholder farmers, who attended the meeting, related how a tender to fence the farm was allegedly awarded to a Limpopo company, with no consideration given to local fencing enterprises. In other instances, contractors were allegedly paid in full for work that was not completed.
On Monday, DA MP Nqaba Bhanga said a resolution had been taken by the committee to shut down the farm three years ago. “The committee unanimously agreed that the farm should fold because it was a waste of taxpayers’ money. A report on that decision was sent to and adopted by Parliament,” said the former committee member and erstwhile Cope MP.
He added: “That farm is still sitting there doing nothing. That farm will never work. It will never succeed.”
When The Star dialled the phone number listed under the farm in the Yellow Pages, the operator said the number did not exist.
Zokwana’s spokeswoman Bomikazi Molapo said the farm contributed toward the food security programme and that the R5.935m it had received from the minister was for its “normal operating costs, as the entity is still under operation”.
“There are employees working there currently as well as animals that need to be taken care of. It will continue with its functions under the department,” Molapo said.
She added that the R788.1m administration budget “incorporates all support functions of the department”. These included the corporate services, and monitoring and evaluation branches.