Last year the organized agriculture, consisting of TA SA, Agri SA, and Afasa, offered to administer the entire drought aid scheme. This would include the money allocated by various government agencies.
The state rejected this offer and insisted on handling the drought aid itself.
Since then, it was discovered that the state would only help black farmers, and some emerging or subsistence farmers were helped with a few sacks of maize.
Now it seems that the government departments have been given a total of R1 billion for drought aid, and only R50 million, or 5%, was granted to farmers.
For a large commercial farmer, even the amount of R50 million is not so much and shows the amount of money that is gone.
The auditor-general, as well as the public protector, will be asked to do a forensic audit to determine where the money disappeared to.
Read the original article in Afrikaans on Die Vryburger
South Africa Today – South Africa News
