AGSA briefs Agriculture Committee on its review of 2025/26 APP

The Office of the Auditor General's (AGSA) review of the Department of Agriculture and its entities’ 2025/26 annual performance plans (APPs) and budgets was recently presented to the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture in line with the Medium-Term Development Plan (MTDP)

As part of its findings, the AGSA told the committee that seemingly the MTDP indicators and targets are not included in the department’s strategic and annual performance plans. The committee heard that MTDP 2024–2029 is a five-year strategic blueprint developed by the seventh administration to drive national development. The MTDP aligns with the National Development Plan (NDP) 2030 and integrates international commitments, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the AU Agenda 2063.

The committee expressed concern after the AGSA revealed that the department has set annual reports as a target without clearly understanding the expected level of performance. This lack of specificity makes both the indicator and the target unclear and ambiguous. It also causes AGSA to be unable to measure effectively, which undermines their usefulness for monitoring progress and evaluating performance.

AGSA also presented reviews of the APPs of the department’s three entities – the Agricultural Research Council, Onderstepoort Biological Products and the National Agricultural Council. As part of the presentation, the AGSA recommended that the committee should ask the department to present a revised 2025/26 APP along with a matrix showing changes made to performance indicators, their definitions and associated date sources. In addition, the committee should also ask the department for regular updates on this information. 

Committee Chairperson, Dina Pule, emphasised that the committee was not rejecting the APPs as presented, but rather allowing the department and its entities to reconstruct the APPs in light of the AGSA recommendations.