It seems that time is running out for the minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, to convince opposition parties, some members of the ANC, and leaders of organised agriculture of her ability to run the department effectively.
Joemat-Pettersson was recently in the headlines after it came to light that she had raked up a R1,6 million hotel bill over two years. But, according to members of parliament, the expenditure on luxury hotels is merely another symptom of the mismanagement that has become synonymous with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF).
Salam Abram, ANC MP and a member of parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, was openly critical about the way in which DAFF was run. “As far as I am concerned, the department is in chaos and the officials working for the department are not up to the task,” Abram told Farmer’s Weekly.
The minister has been at pains to explain that the parliamentary reply detailing her hotel stays contained incorrect information and she has also blamed the Department of Public Works for taking 16 months to provide her with official residences in Cape Town and Pretoria.
She said that she and her children had had to sleep in a car while “officials from DAFF frantically looked for accommodation” after she was kicked out of a fully booked guesthouse in Johannesburg during the 2010 World Cup.
DA spokesperson for agriculture, Laurie Bosman, said he was not satisfied with these explanations and found it unacceptable that after two weeks the minister had still not provided the correct information about her hotel stays.
He also criticised her for signing off on a parliamentary reply which she then claimed contained wrong information. This reflected poorly on her “managerial abilities”, he said.
According to Bosman, who is also an MP and member of the portfolio committee, Joemat-Pettersson seemed to have no control over DAFF’s expenditure, and the hotel bill was simply the latest item in a long list of reckless spending which included R1,7 million on overseas flights and R15 million on a farm worker summit that delivered no results.
“The minister’s performance has been so poor up until now that, if we do not see a change in the near future, I would go so far as to suggest she should rather be replaced by someone better equipped to do the job,” he said. According to Pieter Groenewald, Freedom Front Plus MP, the minister had started off well, but he was becoming increasingly concerned about her performance.
“I don’t want to see her stumble halfway through her term, but she will have to start appointing officials who have the necessary expertise,” he said. These concerns were shared by representatives of organised agriculture; with Johannes Möller, president of Agri SA, saying that the hotel bill issue raised questions about proper management within the department.
However, a more pressing issue was the inaccessibility of the minister.
“The last time we had a scheduled meeting with her was in early 2010. “This is not the way it should be and it is becoming increasingly clear to us that commercial agriculture is not high on the minister’s list of priorities,” said Möller. In related news, DAFF’s chief of staff, Faizal Daniels, left the department recently after posting controversial comments on social network site Facebook, where he described President Jacob Zuma as “absent-minded” and ANC MPs as “treating parliament like a shebeen”.
Acting chief of staff in the ministry, Selby Bokaba, told Farmer’s Weekly that Daniels had opted to resign. “He took full responsibility for the matter and admitted his indiscretions,” Bokaba said. – Denene Erasmus
