DA files Public Service Commission complaint against NHI
20 May 2024
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has lodged a complaint against the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme with the Public Service Commission for urgent investigation. This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the fatally-flawed NHI into law last week in a desperate election stunt, as the ANC marches towards defeat at the polling booth on 29 May.
Our complaint also comes after the DA was contacted by panicked public servants who are members of the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) – the largest medical aid scheme in South Africa, with over 2.8 million principal members and beneficiaries.
Using NHI to expropriate medical aid contributions without compensation and to extort even higher taxes from all South Africans, including from the millions of public servants who are members of GEMS, will only serve to further fuel the ANC corruption and mismanagement that is the real cause limiting access to quality public healthcare for millions of poor citizens.
The DA’s complaint to the PSC is lodged in terms of the Commission’s mandate, as outlined in section 196 (4)(a-c) of the Constitution “to investigate, monitor and evaluate the organisation and administration, and the personnel practices, of the public service,” to “propose measures to ensure effective and efficient performance within the public service,” as well as “to promote the values and principles set out in section 195, throughout the public service.” The applicable values and principles outlined in section 195 include that the “efficient, economic and effective use of resources must be promoted and that “good human-resource management and career development practices, to maximise human potential, must be cultivated.”