Absurd squandering of R89 million on NHI campaigns

31 October 2024

The Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, admitted to the FF Plus during a meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Health that the R89 million which was spent on advertising campaigns for the National Health Insurance (NHI) was mostly a waste of money.

According to the Minister, the expenditure did not offer value for money. The irregularities in which the company Digital Vibes was implicated only made matters worse.

The Minister made the admission in response to the FF Plus's question about whether the campaigns were justified. His answer confirms the FF Plus's view that the advertising campaigns were nothing but a waste of money.

It simultaneously demonstrates how desperate government is to sell its impractical plans to the public using their own tax money.

According to the Minister's reply to a written question by the FF Plus, approximately R78 million was spent on the controversial company Digital Vibes in 2020.

The Minister added that the money was later used for communicating with the public about Covid-19. The Digital Vibes scandal in which Dr Zweli Mkhize was involved during the Covid-19 period is still fresh in the memory.

Moreover, the Portfolio Committee indicated that it is still waiting for a report, due more than three years ago, by the Department on the Digital Vibes scandal.

In September 2024, a further R11 million was paid to the company KMTV Media for an advertising campaign. The FF Plus will query the exact nature of it.

The money could have been put to much better use given public hospitals and clinics' decay and dysfunction due to poor infrastructure, and a lack of medical personnel, ambulances, doctors and nurses.

Pharmacies are vacant, essential medical equipment is missing, and there is a shortage of beds and even water. Certain medical facilities' outstanding debt to service providers is so vast that it consumes their entire budget.

Medical personnel in the public sector are currently working under tremendous pressure and difficult circumstances with what is at their disposal.

Frequent oversight visits to these institutions countrywide reveal that they are definitely not ready to implement government's grandiose NHI plan. As it stands, public healthcare facilities are already unable to provide proper medical care to patients.

The Government of National Unity (GNU) should not allow even parts of the NHI to be implemented. It is not viable.

The FF Plus maintains its stance that it will not support the NHI in any way, shape or form. The party has also repeatedly rejected the entire law in Parliament.

The NHI is doomed to fail and should be scrapped before all healthcare services in the country are torn down to the current level of public healthcare. Ultimately, the public will be the biggest losers.

Issued by Phillip van Staden, MP, FF Plus, 31 October 2024