Saai welcomes disciplinary action against OBP CEO and investigation into FMD vaccine pricing

Saai welcomes the strict disciplinary action taken against Jacob Madumo, Chief Executive Officer of Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP), as well as the accompanying investigation into the alleged manipulation of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccine prices.

It is high time that a thorough investigation be conducted into possible unlawful profiteering through transactions between state entities, state-owned enterprises, and national and provincial government departments.

Farmers expect action to be taken against decision-makers within the state where wrongdoing is established, and that any profits found to have been unlawfully obtained be recovered and used to help alleviate the enormous financial burden that the FMD crisis has placed on farmers.

Several DA ministers have acted swiftly after taking office to clean up their departments and deal with corrupt or underperforming senior officials. This is the first significant action of its kind in the agricultural environment, and farmers welcome seeing Minister Willie Aucamp establish clear principles, uphold them and act when those principles are breached. Jacob Madumo will hopefully not be the last official to face scrutiny where there are grounds for investigation.

Madumo was involved in the settlement negotiations following the court case challenging centralised state control over decision-making and the handling of FMD vaccines. Those negotiations resulted in an agreement that the state would relinquish its monopoly over the importation, distribution and administration of vaccines.

From the outset, farmers were concerned about the single-channel importation of Biogénesis Bagó vaccines through OBP, a state-owned enterprise, and the implications this could have for vaccine pricing. The manner in which Design Biologix’s agency agreement with Biogénesis Bagó was terminated and subsequently taken over by OBP continues to leave a bitter taste in the livestock industry.

The state’s shifting statements regarding vaccine prices had already prompted uncomfortable questions from farmers towards the end of 2025. At the end of December, the Department indicated that farmers should prepare for costs of approximately R300 per animal per year. In January 2026, the Department stated that vaccines cost R86 per dose, while responses to several questions in Parliament indicated that the cost ranged between R71 and R96 per dose.

Both Design Biologix and Dunevax, however, had already published their prices in January at between R45 and R55 per dose, delivered anywhere in South Africa.

When Saai highlighted these discrepancies and questioned whether OBP was profiting from the FMD crisis, then Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen dismissed the concerns as “disinformation” and referred to Saai’s board chairman as the “mischief maker in chief”. Despite the significant discrepancies in the figures, no investigation was launched at the time.

During his first week after being appointed Minister of Agriculture, Willie Aucamp made it clear that he would not tolerate profiteering by state institutions, a principle to which OBP also committed itself. He began asking the necessary questions and found apparent irregularities in the transactions, while some of the answers provided did not reconcile with the available information. He scrutinised the information, identified conduct that warranted further investigation and acted.

Farmers hope that the consequences for officials implicated in wrongdoing will send a strong signal throughout the state that corruption, collusion and unlawful profiteering from disaster management will not be tolerated.

No one bears greater losses from the FMD crisis than farmers. It is neither fair nor sustainable for farmers alone to foot the bill for South Africa’s fight against foot-and-mouth disease. It is unacceptable for abattoirs and feedlots to shift the risks and costs associated with the crisis onto farmers.

It is even more reprehensible if state institutions or those benefiting from their decisions seek to exploit farmers during a national animal-health crisis.

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