Listen here.Agricultural Minister John Steenhuisen is facing huge damage claims from livestock farmers following a High Court order against him. In this interview with Chris Steyn, Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai) CEO Francois Rousseau says the court found that the Minister and his department were “unlawfully prohibiting farmers from vaccinating their own cattle” and ordered that he “cannot interfere in the supply of or in the business transaction relating to the supply of vaccines coming into the country”. Roussouw says he hopes farmers suing the Minister for damages will succeed because “this was an absolute abuse of power”. He further charges: “This is someone who had no expertise whatsoever, appointed people with expertise on these different advisory committees, but he just used them to legitimise his actions…I do think he lied intentionally on a number of occasions and for that, farmers should hold him accountable.” Roussow outlines all the practical implications of the judgment for livestock farmers with regards to supply, procurement and administration..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.686)A big high court victory over Agricultural Minister John Steenhuisen has given livestock farmers in South Africa a lifeline. We get the details from Saai CEO, Francois Rousseau. Welcome, Francois.Francois Rossouw (00:14.496)Hi Chris, thanks for having me.Chris Steyn (00:17.068)You're welcome. Please give our viewers the gist of that judgment.Francois Rossouw (00:21.46)Yeah, so we've been in court three times now, and luckily, our merits were heard on the third time, and we waited two weeks for the judgment and court order, but boy, was it worth it. You know, finally, we approached this court matter from a farmer's side, and I think that's important just to highlight this. We could not stand in for vaccine producers or stores that sell vaccines or vaccine suppliers, all of that. So we came from a farmer's direction and what we wanted to do was we wanted to ask the court what impediment is there in current legislation that is stopping farmers from vaccinating their own cattle. And the court said there was nothing. There was no impediment and that the minister and his department was unlawfully prohibiting farmers from vaccinating their own cattle. And then another important one was that the court said that the minister cannot interfere in the supply of or in the business transaction relating to the supply of vaccines coming into the country.So this is an interim court order. We still have to lodge formal papers for the application that will maybe be heard at the end of the year. But it's a massive victory for farmers just in the fact that they can now procure and vaccinate the cattle themselves.Chris Steyn (01:49.088)It couldn't have come at a better time. I'm sure you saw reports that ninety percent of commercial beef farmers in KZN had not been able to access State vaccines.Francois Rossouw (02:00.916)Yeah, that's a shocking statistic and we've already seen that some of those cattle herds, and I think some of their dairy herds, have already become reinfected after some of them being vaccinated already at the start of the year. And that's just because of the lackadaisical approach and the fact that there's no coordinated effort from the department or from provincial State Veterinary Services in vaccinating cattle herds. You have to find where an outbreak is, you have to draw a 10 kilometer radius and you have to vaccinate from the outside in, but also then you need to hit all those spots. So we can clearly see that the approach that has been followed for the last four months or since January has simply not worked and the fact that the minister claims you know that we're making progress and he makes media statements on there's been no reinfections. It's absolute rubbish and he's been lying himself out of one situation into the next and it's finally coming to a head now.Chris Steyn (03:06.858)And even compounding the delays by fighting people trying to speed up the process.Francois Rossouw (03:12.754)Yeah, he accused us of that, that our court matter would delay the vaccine rollout process. And we told him that if that happens, it would only be because of his actions. And if he did that, it would be a dereliction of duty. And we would take him to court for that as well. So, yeah, I think the issue is absolutely with the Department of Agriculture with State Veterinary Services. It is widely known and accepted that we are in this mess because the State Veterinary Services has been failing for the last 20 years and in the last 18 months it's just gone downhill even further and a crisis like this really tests the department but also Veterinary Services and they've just not been able to to stand up to do that test.So yeah, we are unsure of what the future holds and how they are going to address this. But the important thing is that our court order does not stop the State from doing anything that they should be doing. It doesn't detract from the job that they should be doing. In fact, it now gives private industry and farmers the tools to assist them with this vaccination.Chris Steyn (04:28.637)Okay, so what are the practical implications for livestock farmers now, as far as supply and administration of vaccines?Francois Rossouw (04:40.884)Yeah, so that's a critical question because that's something that the nitty gritties of the court matter does not address. First of all, so you have to, you as a farmer have to notify the provincial state veterinarian or the area or the veterinary services official that is in control of the area which you are in five days prior to you wanting to vaccinate your cattle. And then after you vaccinated them, 14 days after that, you have to deliver an affidavit with all of the details. And that is provided in the court document or the court order. The important thing now is currently there is no vaccine available for farmers to vaccinate with. So farmers can procure the vaccines from registered and authorised vaccine importers and then suppliers thereof. But because of the fact that this whole process has been centralised from the beginning, vaccine suppliers couldn't place large orders and couldn't really invest in large quantities of vaccines coming into the country because they only had one buyer and that buyer had a very poor record of paying for vaccines.So that backlog was caused by the Department of Agriculture. And now we have private industry that has to stand in for this backlog and has to contact these external vaccine suppliers to say, look, we are now allowed to sell this directly to farmers who are willing to buy it and are willing to vaccinate. And as soon as you place that order, it's six weeks, then they can only produce that vaccine in a six week cycle and then it's imported into South Africa. Then you have to hope that SAPHRA issues you with a Section 21 license. So currently it's only DuneVax that can really bring vaccines into the country. And they've already pledged that two million that is coming into the country shortly to the Department of Agriculture. Now, obviously the department and OBP can sell those vaccines to farmers, but they won't. It's just not going to happen.Francois Rossouw (06:55.464)So we now have to wait for a private supplier to import it legally and then make it available to farmers. And that's the issue where we are currently at. It is important that we implore private industry and suppliers and vaccine producers to take on the battle further. We've now done it from a farmer's side and from a primary producer perspective, but we don't have the local standing as producers, suppliers, importers to take this battle further. They must now assist in getting this boulder over the hill because it doesn't help we have this court order but vaccine supplies is nowhere to be found.Chris Steyn (07:40.909)Can you estimate a timeline for procurement?Francois Rossouw (07:45.78)That's what we're going to find out today; we have numerous conversations this afternoon with private industry and suppliers and producers from outside of the country. There are a lot of plans that have been made while guys were waiting for this court order. So hopefully we will have further clarity later on in the day. But I don't see anything concrete happening before end of June, because that's just the nature of this whole cycle that is the production. Maybe OBP and the department decides that it's not necessary to be this difficult and they just sell it straight on to the farmers themselves because the current process has just not been working.Chris Steyn (08:36.961)You mentioned earlier that the powers of the minister have been curtailed. So he can't interfere in international commercial relations now.Francois Rossouw (08:46.559)Yeah, he can't go to suppliers or to producers of vaccines like he did previously with the Biogénesis Bagó Design Biologix debacle, where he just simply instructed Biogénesis and he said, no, look, you can't work with Design Biologix because we want everything that you supply to come directly to us because we want to be the central holder of all vaccines and distributor of. So that was an important part of the court order itself. And it will certainly alleviate and will produce more investor confidence because it's a lot of money. It's 80 million upwards per shipment. And the big thing that I think most people don't understand, it's not just this year. We don't have to vaccinate just in 2026. It's for the next 10 to 12 years. We have to do this consistently. And if we had to rely on government, they would fail us every time. So we need to set up good supply lines. We need to have great logistical channels in order to get these vaccines to farmers to do this over the next decade.Chris Steyn (10:02.977)Now this has come too late for many farmers who have seen their herds devastated. Does this judgment open the door to sue the minister for damages?Francois Rossouw (10:15.829)Yes, well, I hope the farmers themselves absolutely investigate this. And we've already begun looking into it, but there are some challenges with this. Unfortunately, there are certain elements to issuing summons for damages. And I think the biggest one will be causality. But I know of farmers who have already done it and for large amounts. I really do hope that they succeed because this was an absolute abuse of power. This is someone who had no expertise whatsoever, appointed people with expertise on these different advisory committees, but he just used them to legitimise his actions. Every time people asked, about the private industry? Why are you not listening to experts? And he would say, look, here are my experts on my... Right, I have all the best veterinarians and on my left, I have all the private organisations representing farmers. Look, what are you talking about that I'm not talking to private industry? But he never listened to them. He never attended the meetings and he used all these rubbish excuses of bioterrorism and…. None of those excuses was used in court, but he used them in the media and he lied himself out of one predicament to the next and now we're sitting with this crisis almost eight to 12 months later because of him. So I do think that there was malice in what he did. I do think there was subterfuge. I do think he lied intentionally on a number of occasions and for that, farmers should hold him accountable.Chris Steyn (12:01.697)Thank you. That was Saai CEO, Francois Rossouw speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn.