DA welcomes the extension of public participation process for Draft Health Regulations
14 April 2022
Note to Editors: Please find an attached soundbite by Michele Clarke MP.
The DA welcomes the extension of the public participation process for the Regulations in the Government Gazette to the National Health Act 61 of 2003. The public participation process, which opened on 15 March, were set to close on 15 April 2022. During today's parliamentary portfolio committee on health meeting, the Department of Health announced a 7-day extension to the public participation process, which will now close on 22 April 2022.
This extension is in response to the DA's letter to Health Minister, Dr Joe Phaahla, highlighting various reports that email submissions were deleted without being viewed.
Although we welcome the extension, emails that were deleted are potentially lost and we therefore call on the Department to conduct an audit of the emails that were received as well as a technical system assessment in order to prevent such an error from happening again.