Soundbite by Michéle Clarke MP.
The Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, once again failed to present a detailed costing for the National Health Insurance (NHI), rather doubling down on his plans to fund the NHI through currently unsanctioned taxes. The Minister must introduce an amendment to withdraw this disastrous law and follow proper public consultations on how to achieve universal health care.
According to the Minister the only way to fix the public healthcare system he oversees is to change its funding model, which means implementing the NHI. The NHI’s funds would come from four different sources:
1. the shifting of funds from national government departments and agencies and the provincial equitable share and conditional grants (including ending all medical subsidies for civil servants);
2. the reallocation of medical scheme tax credits;
3. payroll taxes; and
4. surcharges on personal income tax.
The Minister failed to answer the DA’s question as to whether he had consulted National Treasury on his tax plan, and what Treasury’s view of new taxes was. The NHI cannot be funded without a money bill that only Treasury can introduce. He also did not explain how scrapping medical aid subsidies paid to civil servants will work, despite this being a significant source of funding for his plan.
Minister Motsoaledi further failed, yet again, to take accountability for the lack of consequences for mismanagement and corruption which has hollowed out hospitals like Tembisa Hospital and continues to cripple provincial departments. The Minister seems completely unable to consider how this problem would not disappear under the NHI. While the DA supports universal health care and universal access to health care, we do not believe that the NHI will succeed in providing this – certainly not in the hands of officials who will face no consequences when they facilitate corruption.
The newest revelations in the oxygen plant tender issue are a clear indication of that. amaBhungane revealed this morning that the Minister failed to remove the entire Pressure Swing Adsorption tender from the Independent Development Trust (IDT) and place it under the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) as promised. The R152 million contract awarded to Maziya On-Site Gas Systems to install 10 oxygen plants is still being managed by the IDT. Furthermore, the IDT failed to present a forensic report on the tender to the parliamentary portfolio committee on public works and infrastructure this morning as requested.
The Minister’s recent failure to publicly do as promised, and his continuous failure to implement consequence management, forecast an NHI Fund that will leak like a sieve ensuring continued enrichment of politically connected individuals while South African citizens make do with crumbling infrastructure, staff shortages in hospitals and clinics, and years-long wait lists. It is time his Department introduced an amendment to withdraw this disastrous law and follow proper public consultations on how to achieve universal health care.