The Virginia Mega Poultry Project in the Free State Province remains a disappointment for the 14 female and 3 male youth beneficiaries of this R52 million investment.
As women’s month draws to a close it remains clear that empowerment of young women or any other beneficiaries has never been the priority regarding investment of state funds into agricultural projects in the Free State.
The Virginia Mega Poultry Project was constructed over three years from 2014 and was meant to be fully operational by 2017. The financial investment by government into this project was R30 million in 2014/15, R9 million in 2015/16 and R13 million in 2016/17 financial years. The five broiler houses were meant to house 40 000 chickens.
During an NCOP oversight visit to the project in 2018, problems identified by the beneficiaries included a high mortality rate among hatchlings, a lack of an established client base and a lack of decontamination showers that reduced the value of their product.
Currently there is little visible activity at the projects that was meant to beneficiate people from the local community of Virginia and Meloding in the Matjhabeng Municipality. The project is another example of how large amounts of money are spent on infrastructure and then becomes underutilised and eventually redundant.
Please see photos here, here and here.
While taxpayers continue to fork out large amounts of money for such projects, the lack of support in terms of management skills, access to markets and expertise continue to guarantee their failure.
The investment by government in such projects have failed to bring about any visible transformation of the agricultural sector, and appear only to have benefitted companies involved in the construction and development of infrastructure.
This project remains another example for how the wrong ideological formula of collectivism and state control continues to fail transformation of the agricultural sector and eventually destroys the hopes of local beneficiaries for improved livelihoods.
It remains too easy for ANC politicians and officials in ANC-run governments continue to squander money that does not belong to them on failed social and economic engineering experiments at the cost of local economies.
The lack of political will in government to hold people accountable for this, or change outdated formulae for economic development has consumed available funds for further initiatives.
The DA believes that investment in such infrastructure requires partnerships with the private sector in order to ensure the transfer of valuable experience, management skills, access to markets, local beneficiation and job creation, and long term independence and financial sustainability.
The necessary skills required to manage projects of this nature are not available within government’s extension of services.
The DA will continue to probe and expose such projects in the Free State as part of our ongoing constitutional mandate to do oversight over the provincial government and supply alternatives.