Willie Aucamp has been Minister of Agriculture since the end of June, and on Friday he called an urgent meeting with the board of a company his department owns. He put allegations of serious misconduct to it, about the price of the vaccine South Africa is using to fight the worst foot-and-mouth outbreak in its history. By Saturday the acting chief executive of Onderstepoort Biological Products, Dr Jacob Modumo, had been given notice of the board's intention to suspend him.
OBP occupies an unusual position. It is a state company that imports animal vaccines and sells them on to farms, and on foot-and-mouth doses it is not permitted to profit from doing it. South Africa buys almost all of that vaccine from two producers, Biogenesis Bago in Argentina and Dollvet in Turkey. GroundUp, which reported the suspension first, says its own understanding is that OBP bought doses from the Argentine supplier at R45 and sold them on at between R70 and R130. The minister's statement names no price at all.
Five days to answer
None of this is settled. The board gave Modumo five days to provide reasons why he should not be suspended, and said that if those reasons are not sufficient the suspension stands while an independent investigation runs. Aucamp has been explicit that the step is precautionary and that no finding of wrongdoing has been made. Modumo has said nothing publicly and has not yet made representations. OBP has said only that more information will follow when it is appropriate and lawful.
The worst outbreak on record
The timing is what turns a governance matter into a national one. South Africa is in the worst foot-and-mouth epidemic it has recorded, with every province and thousands of farms hit. Dairy farms alone lost more than R1 billion between January 2024 and January 2026, in an industry with a gross production value of about R22 billion a year, and the epidemic escalated after that. Vaccinating the national herd properly takes roughly 25 million doses a year, because cattle need two shots each.
The vaccination drive is running regardless. The Western Cape says about 82% of its cattle herd has had a first dose, and Gauteng reports new outbreaks falling from 166 in the four months to January to six across June, July and August. Aucamp says the suspension will not interrupt any of it, and has told farmers to keep applying for the authorisation that lets them vaccinate their own animals.
