Steenhuisen squares off with Trollip over handling of foot-and-mouth outbreak

Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen squared off with a political foe, ActionSA’s Athol Trollip, in the National Assembly on Tuesday over his handling of the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Trollip, who has been a vocal critic of Steenhuisen’s response to the disease, especially the State-controlled vaccination programme, has continued to insist that vaccine delivery has been delayed.

But Steenhuisen said Trollip’s claims are false and is standing by his plan to vaccinate the entire national herd, saying it will eventually lead to the country being completely free of the disease.

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After measured responses to Trollip’s questions in a portfolio committee meeting earlier in the day, the gloves came off in the afternoon plenary session after Trollip accused Steenhuisen of being too slow to procure and roll out enough vaccines.

But Steenhuisen hit back at his party’s former parliamentary leader, saying last Saturday’s shipment of one million doses is the largest consignment of animal vaccines to ever arrive in the country and more are on the way this week.

“1.5 million vaccines from Turkey, which will beat the record of the largest number of single vaccines. What have you done in this house for the last 20 years that you’ve sat here? You’ve done nothing about foot-and-mouth disease. You’ve done nothing about it.”

Despite several interruptions from opposition party members of Parliament (MPs) who took jibes at the controversy surrounding Steenhuisen’s party leadership, he took it on the chin.

“I’m very happy to be called UberEats because unlike those members, I know a little about delivery. They couldn’t deliver, if they tried.”

Steenhuisen said he’s undeterred by the criticism and remains confident that his strategy will eradicate the disease.