Animal welfare in peril as vet council collapses into chaos

Regulator melts down amid botched elections, governance lapses and an exodus of skilled vets

- By Don Pinnock

Highly qualified veterinarians have approached Daily Maverick with grave concerns about the state of governance in their profession.

Fearful of victimisation, they cannot go public with their names, though they have provided them to this publication.

Their testimony, combined with documents and statements from the South African Veterinary Council (SAVC) and the Ministry of Agriculture, paints a picture of a regulator in crisis: two failed elections, glaring governance lapses and an exodus of vets from South Africa that the authorities appear unable or unwilling to address.

At the heart of the storm lies the SAVC, a statutory body established under the Veterinary and Para-Veterinary Professions Act 19 of 1982. By law, all practising vets, para-veterinarians, nurses and technicians must register and pay annual fees to the council.

The council has stumbled from one electoral fiasco to another this year, leaving the profession without a legally constituted governing body and forcing Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen to intervene.

Responding to a request for clarity from Daily Maverick, Steenhuisen said he shared the concern of the vets and urged the SAVC to "rerun the elections promptly". If it failed to comply, he would explore other options, "including court intervention or invoking interim nominations". He urged the SAVC to resolve the issue.

The CEO of the council, Mongezi Menye, said: "The SAVC would like to state that the matter of the elections has been escalated to the president of South Africa and to the portfolio committee on agriculture. We therefore don't want to comment further at this point."

He supplied Daily Maverick with a lengthy statement to President Cyril Ramaphosa, but marked it "highly confidential", so we cannot quote from it.