Excerpt: While the Minister of Agriculture assures the public that the Avian Flu and Foot-and-Mouth Disease outbreaks are being handled, the courtroom record tells a very different story. In two live review applications brought by Liberty Fighters Network, the Minister has failed to oppose, failed to produce critical records, and failed to account under oath — even as he publicly concedes that the FMD outbreak is a battle being lost. With disaster-level consequences looming and no evidence of engagement with the National Disaster Management Centre, LFN is escalating the matter to the President. This article exposes the growing chasm between media narratives and legal reality — and why it matters for South Africa’s food security and farmers.
Read the letter to the President here
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Liberty Fighters Network (LFN) has today formally escalated a complaint to the President of the Republic concerning the conduct of John Steenhuisen, arising from two live judicial review proceedings involving Avian Flu (AF) and Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD).
LFN is a well-known social-justice voluntary association without gain. We act for our members and, where circumstances demand it, in the broader public interest. We do not play politics. We test power against evidence. And where the record fails, we expose it.
What makes this moment different — and deeply troubling — is not merely the scale of the animal-health crises facing South Africa, but the collapse of accountability by a Minister who built his political identity on demanding exactly that from others.
The courtroom tells a different story
In public, the Minister speaks confidently. In the media, the narrative is that government is “on top of it.” Yet in both the Avian Flu and FMD review cases, the Minister has failed to oppose.
Let that sink in.
- In the Avian Flu case, the Minister failed to file an answering affidavit at all, rendering the matter unopposed.
- In the FMD case, the Minister failed entirely to deliver the record of decision and failed to oppose, exposing the country to the real risk that a court may be forced to grant relief by default.
This is not a technicality. These are live crises affecting food security, farmers’ livelihoods, exports, and consumer prices. Allowing judicial review of crisis decisions to proceed unopposed is not leadership. It is abdication.
Avian Flu: decisions that do not survive daylight
The Avian Flu record — delivered by the Minister himself — is dysfunctional and internally contradictory. It reveals, among other things, that vaccines were sourced approximately a month before the permit authorising them was issued.
That raises unavoidable questions:
- How does one lawfully procure and prepare vaccines before the legal authorisation exists?
- Why does the record show no meaningful consultation with all materially affected stakeholders?
- Why does the permit appear to function as retrospective cover rather than prior authorisation?
These are not LFN’s opinions. They are questions that arise directly from the Minister’s own record.
FMD: “We are losing the battle,” yet no disaster response?
The Minister has publicly admitted that the FMD outbreak appears to be a battle that is being lost.
If that is true — and those are his words — then the next step in any competent, lawful system is obvious: engage the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) and activate coordinated disaster-response mechanisms.
Yet there is no indication that this has happened.
Instead, the crisis is presented as a departmental skirmish, with the Minister projecting the image of personal command, while simultaneously conceding failure. This contradiction matters. Where disaster thresholds are crossed — or clearly approaching — ego and voter optics cannot substitute for lawful intergovernmental action.
LFN asks the question the public deserves answered:
Why was the NDMC not engaged when the Minister himself acknowledged that the battle was being lost?
Hypocrisy has consequences
For years, the DA has rightly criticised secrecy, maladministration, and executive evasion. Those standards do not evaporate when the DA occupies the ministry.
Accountability is not a slogan. It is tested in court. And right now, the uncomfortable truth is this: the Minister’s media narrative does not match the litigation reality.
Mainstream media has not reported on:
- the Minister’s non-opposition;
- the missing FMD record; or
- the default-judgment risk created by ministerial silence.
The public is being fed a version of events that is not borne out by sworn proceedings.
Is this incompetence — or something worse?
LFN does not accuse. We investigate.
But when:
- food-production systems are destabilised;
- farmers are left exposed;
- disaster mechanisms are not invoked; and
- the Minister refuses to defend his own decisions under oath,
it is legitimate — and necessary — to ask whether this is mere incompetence, or a conscious tolerance of outcomes that cripple agriculture.
If there is nothing to hide, the solution is simple: produce the records, oppose the cases, and tell the truth.
Why LFN is escalating this now
LFN has previously written extensively on both the Avian Flu and FMD court challenges. We have remained consistent: truth before power, evidence before politics.
This time, the DA leader sits at the centre of the storm.
That does not deter us. It compels us.
We have formally requested presidential intervention — either through a judicial commission of inquiry or a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation — because governance failure during a food-security crisis is not something South Africa can afford.
LFN will continue to pursue the record. We will continue to test the facts in court. And we will continue to expose maladministration — no matter which party badge is worn.
Because accountability means nothing if it only applies to one side.
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