Eastern Cape administrative structures Ministries related

1.4. Eastern Cape administrative structures Ministries related

South Africa has a particular administrative structure (Figure 1.1). It is divided into nine Prov-inces being these comparable to German Federal States. Each Province is governed by a Prime Minister who designates his subordinates Ministers, including the Minister of Agricul-ture, the political head of the Department of Agriculture for the Eastern Cape.

Figure 1.1.: Study areas for the ECAISA pilot study field operations in February 2008.Amathole District Mu-nicipality, South Africa.

The Eastern Cape, one of the nine Provinces, is located by the Indic Ocean Coast. Its approx-imated boundaries are between 22°49’ and 30°11’ Longitude East and 30°00’ and 34°12’ La-titude South, consisting of approximately 169,580 sq. km. With this figures the size of the Province is the second biggest after the Northern Cape. The Eastern Cape is subdivided in six District Municipalities. Each District Municipality is subsequently organized in Local Muni-cipalities which adds to 38 in the Eastern Cape. Finally, each Local Municipality is structured in Wards, the smallest political division in the Eastern Cape, and a rough equivalent of United States of America Counties or German Landkreise. A table containing the district municipali-ties, local municipalities and the number of wards can be found in annex A.1. The Amathole District Municipality contains seven Local Municipalities and 167 wards. The ECAISA project will take place in the Eastern Cape Province specifically in the Amathole District Mu-nicipality.

1.4.1. Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Department of Agriculture

The Eastern Cape State Veterinary Services depends on the Ministry of Agriculture and is structured in six District Municipalities headed by District Managers. Each of these District Municipalities is subdivided in State Veterinary Areas, being these a total of 22 in the Eastern Cape. State Veterinary Areas (SVA), are a rough equivalent to Local Municipalities although sometimes a SVA can aggregate more than one Local Municipality. This is the case of the SVA of East London that includes both the Buffalo City and the Great Kei Local Municipali-ties. The State Veterinary Services comprises of mainly five working areas which relate to veterinary public health, animal health, veterinary laboratories, animal diseases surveillance and export establishments. The State Veterinary Services provide support at all levels of or-ganization. The main tasks of each working State Veterinary services are described as fol-lows.

1.4.1.1. Veterinary public health

The objective is defined as “to render effective veterinary public health services” and it is focused mainly on abattoirs. It promotes meat safety and veterinary public health training.

Also, it encourages the construction of new abattoirs in disadvantaged areas and supports the upgrade, register, hygiene and structural planning among other activities in abattoirs and

slaughterhouses. Additionally the inspection of the carcasses used for cultural purposes is done.

1.4.1.2. Animal health

The main objective of the animal health section is to promote animal health, animal disease control and to assist with livestock improvement. To fulfill these objectives the Eastern Cape Veterinary services counts with Veterinary Officers as professional staff and a whole branch of technical assistance. This section includes Animal Health Technicians, AHT (approximate-ly 220 for the Eastern Cape) and dipping assistants (approx. 1,700). To manage resources ap-propriately this unit focuses mainly on tuberculosis, rabies, sheep scab, anthrax, highly patho-genic avian influenza and classical swine fever among others.

1.4.1.3. Veterinary laboratories

There are five Veterinary Laboratories in the Eastern Cape. The “Centre of Veterinary Excel-lence” at Döhne Agricultural Development Institute and four secondary laboratories, based at Grahamstown, Middleburgh, Queenstown and Mthata. The Head Office is situated in Döhne and the main tasks here performed are unit coordination, policy development, personnel and budget management and the creation of the Provincial reports. The other Veterinary Laborato-ries perform a wide variety of tasks, detailed in annex A.2.

1.4.1.4. Animal Disease Surveillance

This unit was established as an agency capable of monitoring local animal diseases and as an intervention group into the Agricultural Services. In case of disease outbreak, the Animal Disease Surveillance Unit (ADSU) is able to mobilize personnel and material to evaluate and control the disease outbreak. It is based in the “Centre of Veterinary Excellence” at Döhne Agricultural Development Institute, in Stutterheim (Amahlathi District Municipality).

The mission of the ADSU is to provide the State Veterinary Services in the Eastern Cape with a functional, coordinated and integrated animal diseases outbreak early warning system, to guarantee an efficient emergency / disaster preparedness and response. In addition, the ADSU plays a key role in the correct use and adoption of international, national and provincial vete-rinary standards. It is the ADSU mission to facilitate an effective vetevete-rinary informatics and

extension network. The structure and tasks of the ADSU are schematically displayed in figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2.: Schematic view of the organization, personnel and general tasks of the Animal Disease Surveil-lance Unit (ADSU, 2007) of the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

1.4.2. Ministry of Finance, Department of Statistics (Statistics South Africa)

The Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) plays a role in this study by helping to the data capture and analysis of the data (with TiHo-Hannover and ADSU). Stats SA personnel participated in the final developments of the Database and entered the pilot census data on to it. They pro-vide also support regarding the available data structures related to the human population and partially to the agricultural sector.