Auditor General exposes Rs. 200mn wastage in livestock breeding and vaccine projects

By Nishel Fernando

The Auditor General has issued a stinging critique of the Department of Animal Production and Health (DAPH), flagging over Rs. 200 million in public funds tied up in failed breeding projects and questionable equipment procurement, in a detailed report for the year ended December 31, 2024.

The audit highlighted a state-funded initiative to import high-quality ‘Boer’ goats from Australia as a “futile expenditure,” noting that the project had largely collapsed due to disease and poor planning. 

The project, initiated in 2019 with an investment of Rs. 37.3 million to import 100 breeder goats, aimed to release 250 high-quality animals to the field within five years. However, the initiative was crippled by an outbreak of Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis (CAE), a viral disease that infected the herd during the quarantine period.

The report revealed that despite the department spending an additional Rs. 75.3 million on maintenance, the project failed to meet its objectives. By the end of 2024, the distribution of animals had been suspended, and 141 goats remained “unhealthy” at the Imbulandanda breeding center. 

The Auditor General noted that a special committee decision made in January 2024 to dispose of the infected animals had not been implemented for over a year, causing the government to incur further continuous costs on a failed asset. The total accumulated loss on the project was estimated at Rs. 112.6 million.

Parallel to the livestock failures, the audit raised red flags regarding capital expenditure in the veterinary health sector, specifically scrutinizing the purchase of a bioreactor machine for the Animal Virology Laboratory at a cost of Rs. 96.5 million. The 20L and 200L automatic bioreactor was acquired in July 2022 to boost local vaccine production. However, the audit observed a severe mismatch between the machine’s capacity and national demand.

While the equipment is capable of producing 1.2 million vaccine doses annually, the country’s identified requirement for the specific disease control program stands at only 300,000 doses. The report argued that limiting the utilisation of such high-capacity machinery to meet a significantly lower demand schedule constituted a financial loss to the state. In its defense, the department disputed the capacity figures, stating the machine’s maximum output is 500,000 doses and arguing that the procurement was based on a five-year production plan.

The audit further critiqued historical inefficiencies in disease control, noting that between 2018 and 2020, the state incurred an import cost of Rs. 89.3 million for vaccines that could have been minimized had the current, more efficient control strategies been adopted earlier. The report also highlighted broader financial management issues, revealing that approximately Rs. 242.6 million - 15 percent of the department’s total net provision for the year - remained underutilised by the end of 2024.