The Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP), South Africa's state vaccine maker and the continent’s only livestock vaccine manufacturer, told Parliament yesterday that it has had to destroy huge consignments of vaccines after it was affected by Eskom load shedding during production processes.
Jacob Modumo, a marketing and sales executive and business development officer at OBP, said while there was a stage where OBP struggled with its equipment and maintenance backlogs it was faced with electricity outages, which affected manufacturing.
“Availability of power is a factor in production and most of the products (vaccines) have had to be dumped,” he said.
Despite declaring a clean audit opinion with no findings to Parliament yesterday, the OBP, represented by chairperson Rene Kenosi, acting CEO Luvuyo Mabombo and Modumo, the entity was at pains to convince MPs of its efficiency, especially as it was blamed for the impact of African Horse Sickness (AHS) last year, which saw some horses succumb to the disease because there were no vaccines.
The pressure is on in the current year as the livestock window for vaccination for AHS draws to a close at the end of October.
"We have undertaken to supply the industry with more than 40 000 doses of AHS. In the last two weeks we have done just that. We are going further afield to larger provinces, including Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, which have a high concentration of livestock," Modumo said.
The parliamentarians urged the OBP to put its house in order as the summer and rainy season approached, which last year had farmers apprehensive about the shortage of vaccines, especially for water-borne diseases, which are escalating after a strong rainy season raised the presence of mosquitoes and other insect carriers.
The OBP reported that its net revenue declined from R209 million in the 2020/21 financial year to R170m in the current year largely due to equipment failures and disruptions of production.
Its overall rate for organisational performance slipped 2% to 48% from the previous year, while it saw a 95% reduction in irregular expenditure from R9.4m to R424 000.
Parliamentarians questioned whether the low revenue generation by the OBP was not because farmers had found alternative sources of supply after there was a dire shortage last year in all provinces of Blue Tongue, Rift Valley Fever, African Redwater, Lumpy Skin Disease and the AHD vaccines.
Not immune to scandals at executive level, the OBP is currently going through a forensic investigation report of its previous CEO, Dr Baptiste Dungu, which it said yesterday had been finalised.
Irregular expenditure had been identified, with some disclosed in the financial statements and additional disclosures required in the financial statements.
The OBP earlier this year initiated a precautionary suspension of the former CEO, as well as the former manager in the CEO’s office, Lindiwe Mabena, pending investigations relating to various alleged transgressions including (but not limited to) allowing or instigating irregular procurement procedures, dishonesty and mismanagement in contravention of OBP’s policies.
BUSINESS REPORT