SPCA euthanises starving pigs at FS government farm

14 June 2016

As far back as 2006, a pig farm in the Brandfort district was established with some success by the provincial Department of Agriculture on land owned by the Masilonyana Local Municipality.

With the internal ANC regime change, if you will, in our municipalities in 2011 – the out with the Mbeki faction and in with the Magashule and Zuma regime – the beneficiaries were mysteriously changed from members of the public to two gentlemen who are currently boasting about being ANC candidates in the 2016 Local Government Elections, one Mr Reginald Mpopetsi and the other a Mr Mpolokeng Phokoje.

Speaker, I visited that farm on several occasions last week and the conditions were appalling. Apart from the state of the art infrastructure that cost the tax payer millions, which would have been a good thing if the farm was actually properly run, the animals haven’t been fed or given water for months. Several dead pigs were lying around the compound and the animals appeared to be eating one of the recently dead piglets. See pictures here. 

In images reminiscent of the sad situation at the farm of former North West Premier and current Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, Thandi Modise, the NSPCA has in the meantime obtained a warrant to access the premises and to do the necessary to save the animals that these ANC cadres have neglected. Those that could not be saved were disposed of – yes, there were animals so neglected that nothing could be done for them.

Speaker, this is again a gross display of cadre favouritism and blatant ANC corruption that has turned sour at the cost of the public, those who should be the true beneficiaries of these initiatives.

ANC cronies prove to be equally as bad at pig farming as they are at governing. The DA will continue to investigate the circumstances which led to this scandalous outcome.

Issued by George Michalakis, DA member in the National Council of Provinces for the Free State, 14 June 2016