Farmers’ organisation AgriSA has approached the Public Protector and the Auditor-General to investigate what happened to millions of rand in state drought relief funds allocated for distressed farmers. Last year, the country was hit by the worst drought in decades‚ with six of the nine provinces declared disaster areas‚ but AgriSA says information shows that money earmarked for relief was wasted through the appointment of service providers who knew very little or nothing about agriculture. Some of these service providers were listed as cleaning and construction companies‚ according to AgriSA. Speaking to journalists in Pretoria on Thursday‚ the organisation said this resulted in wrong feed delivered to farmers‚ and some of it was found dumped in the Free State. Several boreholes were also drilled in the same area. Feed prices were inflated to benefit the service providers and departmental officials took some of the feed for themselves‚ the organisation charged. AgriSA said despite R...
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