Agriculture department returns R379.7 million to Treasury while foot and mouth vaccine went unbought

The Department of Agriculture ended the 2025-26 financial year with R379.7 million of its R7.9 billion adjusted appropriation unspent and returned to the National Treasury, and the largest single reason given was that foot and mouth disease vaccine was not procured in time.

That detail sits at the centre of the draft budgetary review and recommendation report the portfolio committee on agriculture considered on 15 October 2026, as recorded in Parliament’s broadcast of the meeting. The department spent 95% of what it was given. The committee’s content adviser took members through the figures, and the committee’s own observations and recommendations were still being worked through item by item when the broadcast reached its end.

The vaccine money is the part that matters most outside the committee room. The biosecurity subprogramme, which carries the country’s response to foot and mouth disease, received R7 million for the year and spent 38% of it, in a year the committee describes as one in which the outbreak demanded the opposite.

Programme two, the larger of the department’s spending programmes, was allocated about R2.9 billion and used R2.7 billion. Of the R231.6 million left over, most was tied to the delayed vaccine procurement. The department has asked for R183 million of its unspent funds to be rolled over, largely for that vaccine, and the report states the rollovers have been granted into the current 2026-27 year.

Food security and support received the biggest share of the vote at R3.6 billion and spent about 99% of it. That headline number hides a weakness the committee flags: roughly 85% of the programme’s money is transferred to provinces as conditional grants and to entities including the Land Bank for the blended finance scheme, and the farmer support subprogramme underspent. The department’s stated reason was under-capacity in supply chain management and acquisition. The Land Bank was slow to spend blended finance, with delays in approvals and beneficiary verification, though the pace improved later in the year. The committee reads the pattern as a monitoring and evaluation weakness over money the department hands to others.

The department has since transferred an additional R150 million to the Land Bank this financial year, after farmers complained during the planting season that the blended finance allocation was already exhausted.

Programme one, administration, ended with R894 million and spent R801 million, or 90%. Most of the shortfall sat in financial management services, where posts stand empty, including that of the chief financial officer. The committee links the gap partly to the slow process that followed the split from the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development. Programme four, economic development, trade and marketing, spent 97% of its R465 million, with the R12 million left over moved to programme two for foot and mouth interventions.

The Auditor-General issued a qualified audit opinion on the department, in respect of advances, departmental revenue and goods and services. The committee records that the findings are largely repeats from the pre-split department, and that the unfinished Section 42 process governing the transfer of functions, assets and liabilities between the two departments contributed to the qualification, because auditors could not obtain a complete financial position. The committee wants that process expedited and finalised before the end of this financial year.

On performance, the department met 17 of 22 annual targets, or 77%. Administration and food security and support each achieved half of their four targets. The committee’s assessment is blunt about the mismatch: programmes spending near their budgets while meeting half their plans. The department paid 97% of valid invoices within 30 days against a 100% requirement, and incurred R16,000 in penalties for late payment. The national food and nutrition security policy remains in draft, and the National Food and Nutrition Security Council is not yet operational, with the department noting that its establishment rests with the Deputy President.

The committee also notes that the chief financial officer and the deputy director-general for corporate services cannot be filled until a fit-for-purpose organisational structure is approved, and that structure sits with the Department of Public Service and Administration. The post of deputy director-general for food security and support, which oversees the programme carrying most of the department’s transferred money, has stood vacant for more than a year since the previous incumbent resigned. The department told the committee last week that it is moving to fill that position.

Among the entities, the Agricultural Research Council reported a surplus of about R370 million and maintained an unqualified audit, with 93% of its 29 targets met. It produced foot and mouth vaccine for the first time in 20 years, with a first batch of 12,900 doses in February and 20,000 in March, and is producing about 25,000 doses a month. The committee calls that a drop in the ocean against need, and records that the industrial vaccine plant remains unbuilt for want of funding, with a shortfall of R1.2 billion still unresolved at the National Treasury.

Onderstepoort Biological Products recorded a fourth consecutive qualified audit, with no permanent chief executive for three years, and the Auditor-General questioned value for money on vaccine procurement and distribution it handles on government’s behalf. Its revenue rose about 120% to R409 million. The National Agricultural Marketing Council received a clean audit and met all its targets while running a R2.8 million deficit and losing its chief financial officer. The Perishable Products Export Control Board returned a clean audit and a R23.6 million surplus, and recorded 208 million cartons of citrus inspected for export, a figure the committee notes put South Africa ahead of Spain.

The South African Veterinary Council reported registering 8,212 veterinary and para-veterinary professionals, a 4% increase, and told the committee of a six-month governance vacuum after its council’s term ended in July 2025, resolved when a new council was appointed from 1 February 2026 following a court case with the Minister of Agriculture. The committee records that only the University of Pretoria trains veterinarians, at about 150 a year, and that the department says it has not been formally told of approvals for new veterinary faculties at Pretoria, UNISA and the University of the Free State.

The report was presented for adoption as a draft, with members taking it observation by observation. Parliament’s broadcast is the record of the meeting.