Details of how National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise allegedly abandoned and starved her livestock at her farm until some of them died were revealed as her case kicked off in the Potchefstroom Regional Court.
Modise’s trial is being prosecuted by AfriForum’s private prosecution unit on behalf of the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) where she faces six counts of contravening the Animals Protection Act.
Modise is also accused of having failed to procure and provide adequate feed to more than 147 pigs, more than 59 sheep, more than 11 lambs, more than 54 goats, more than 25 chickens and geese that had resulted in their emaciation and death.
Prosecutor, advocate Gerrie Nel, said the NSPCA had been forced to euthanise more than 224 animals at her plaas in July 2014.
Modise kept a calm demeanour in the dock as a few ANC members sat in the public gallery to show support.
NSPCA senior inspector Grace de Lange took the stand and detailed how some of the diere were found brandmaer and some already dead during the inspection at the farm.
De Lange said the starved and dehydrated animals were forced to live with carcasses of other animals as they were entrapped in their enclosures.
She said the NSPCA had not found any person operating as the manager of workers at the farm, which she said appeared to be abandoned.
Some of the animals which were later euthanised were so weak that they “[pedalled]” with their feet in vain as they struggled to stand up on their own.
She said when she visited the pigs’ enclosure, the animals had visibly long been neglected: “There was no food and there was definitely no water. In this area I saw numerous dead pigs in various stages of decomposition”.
Modise’s lawyer, advocate Dali Mpofu, pushed De Lange to concede that some of the animals would not have suffered as much from hunger had they not been locked inside their enclosures and instead allowed to graze the grass around the farm.
“I agree it was winter and all that but access for sheep to some grass is better than access to no grass. Are you not able to concede that?” Mpofu asked.
De Lange said: “In my opinion they would have not gotten much better if someone let them out because the nutritional value of grass in winter is not good. Farmers put out additional feed for animals.”
Modise has pleaded not guilty to all charges against her.
The trial continues today.
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