A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

THE

GRAIN AND OILSEED INDUSTRY

OF SOUTH AFRICA – A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

ႄႂ

eople Šom Romania came to see me and

askedwhether the Maize Boardwas interested

in doing business with them. Mr Hendrik

Nel, manager of the Maize Board, felt that the

goverment would never perit us, as the RSA was

involved in a war in Angola. I told him that I was not

involved in any war. If it was in the interest of the

producers for us to do business with Romania, then

we would do it. Hendrik and I then went to Bucharest

at their exense.

The Romanians had done business with America in

the past, but they did not want to supply them with

maize for their pig faring operations of about a

million pigs any longer. They were unable to pay us,

but they could provide any¥hing in exchange: From

oil or fer¥iliser to weapons…we could choose. I asked

him to give me time, because I first had to discuss it

with the goverment.

As nit¢ogen prices had shot up in this period, it made

sense to exchange urea for maize. Minister Dawie de

Villiers – whom I went to see in the Cape – then want-

ed the t¢ansaction to be done by the Fer¥ilizer Societ®,

but I ref§sed. I wanted the benefit to be for the maize

indust¢®. They did not want to do this at all, until I

threatened to take them on in public about it.

It was then leaked to a Sunday paper that the maize

producers wanted to do business with the commu-

nists. I was never in my life reprimanded like that

Monday! In addition, the Romanians phoned me

Šom London – they were just as embar¢assed, be-

cause they were also involved in the war and here

the stor® leaked that they were going to do business

with us. I told them that if they wanted to wreck the

t¢ansaction for ever, they had to give these people

what they wanted; they had to give me a chance to see

this thing through. I then flew to the Cape and saw

Minister Ger¢it Viljoen’s secretar® (whom I knewwell),

and asked her who had leaked the stor® to the news-

papers. By the end of the week she called me and told

me the Securit® Police were on her t¢ail. Then I told

her to rather leave it.

Approval was obtained at last, and we did the ex-

change t¢ansaction with the Romanians, withdrew the

quantit® of maize Šom the market and brought down

fer¥iliser prices. The mistake we made was to concede

to De Villiers’ request that we would phase in the urea

over three years and that it would be stored at the Fer-

tilizer Societ®’s facilities in Umbogint«ini.

Someone let me know that I had to go and check

what they had done with our urea. When I got there,

I found the urea packed flat over a 100 m-wide st¢ip

and leached to such an ex¥ent that the g¢ass for about

300 m had died. During an appointent with Min-

ister De Villiers in Pretoria I told him that the urea

was theirs and not ours, and that the Maize Board

would not pay for the damage. Mr Andries Beyers

(Chairerson of Unieg¢aan at the time), immediate-

ly ag¢eed that the urea could be stored securely in

Unieg¢aan’s sack stores.

EXCHANGING MAIZE FOR UREA

MR CRAWFORD VON ABO