4 DECEMBER 2025, CAPE TOWN

PUBLIC HEALTHCARE FACILITIES THAT WORK, MEDICAL EQUIPMENT AND MEDICINE THAT ARRIVE ON TIME, AND FRONTLINE WORKERS WHO ARE REWARDED ADEQUATELY

HONOURABLE MEMBERS 

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN 

GREETINGS TO YOU ALL!

HOUSE CHAIRPERSON,

The ANC rises today in this House to express its unwavering support for the 2025 Division of Revenue Amendment Bill because it is rooted in protecting life, protecting dignity, and protecting hope. Allow me to indicate how this Amendment Bill protects life, dignity, and hope.

If you live in rural and township areas and your healthcare facilities were damaged by extreme weather conditions linked to climate change – this Amendment Bill brings money to fix them.

If your child, sibling, spouse, partner, or parent needs ongoing medical care and regular treatment – this Amendment Bill protects these important healthcare services.

If you are a frontline worker in public health working double shifts and overburdened with the responsibility to do more with less resources – this Amendment Bill guarantees job security and ensures that you are well compensated for, and your healthcare facility is restored to adequate stock levels.

If you are a young qualified medical doctor who sacrificed six (6) years to qualify, only to sit at home instead of serving our people – this Amendment Bill introduces upward adjustments to the Provincial Equitable Share so you can be absorbed into the public health system.

HONOURABLE MEMBERS,

The upward adjustments in this Amendment Bill directly complement the 2025 SONA’s commitment to protect vulnerable and marginalised citizens, the MTDP’s objective of lifting health outcomes as a pathway out of poverty, and most importantly, the ANC’s 2024 Manifesto commitment to fix clinics, repair hospitals, employ more health workers, and ensure medicines arrive on time.

These commitments are not distant policy ideas; they respond to daily struggles confronting ordinary people, especially Oomama abangasebenzi giving birth in overstretched maternity wards, Abantu abadala walking long distances for chronic medication, Abantwana battling preventable illnesses, and Abasebenzi abaphambili carrying the entire public health system on their shoulders.

HONOURABLE CHAIRPERSON,

Many poor and working-class families feared losing access to HIV and TB treatment when PEPFAR was withdrawn. The ANC moved quickly through the 2025 Special Appropriation Bill to allocate R590 million to ensure that those who rely on HIV and TB treatment are not left stranded. The ANC will not allow poor and working-class families to face such hardship alone – we understand that access to this treatment is a lifeline for these families, and we must applaud COSATU and SECTION27 for warning us that without this R590 million, we risk jeopardizing the hard-won progress the ANC has made in tackling HIV infections, extending life expectancy, and strengthening public primary healthcare.

FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS,

While not reflected formally in this Amendment Bill, provinces have received a R6.71 billion upward adjustment to stabilise compensation of employees and goods and services in the health system. This means that: more frontline workers will be retained, adequate medicine will be stocked and properly managed, and dignity will be restored across all public healthcare facilities, especially in rural and township areas.

Simply put, this R6.71 billion upward adjustment serves as an indication that even in a limited fiscal space, the ANC always chooses to protect rather than cut the frontline workers who serve our poor communities and disadvantaged citizens.

This Amendment Bill allocates a combined R4.6 billion correction to the Provincial Equitable Shares of Gauteng, Free State, and North-West due to population and GDP shifts. This correction will enable these provinces to increase their health budgets to address the growing demand for public healthcare services.

HONOURABLE MEMBERS,

Ndiziva ndilusizi that ordinary people lost lives in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal while the public healthcare system faced collapsed roofs, flooded clinics, and destroyed equipment after severe storms linked to climate change. This Amendment Bill allocates R93 million to rebuild healthcare facilities quickly and restore primary healthcare access in these provinces. Climate change is South Africa’s biggest service delivery risk, and this allocation speaks directly to that.

Furthermore, this Amendment Bill rolls over R33 million for Limpopo Central Hospital as well as Borwa and Clocolan clinics in the Free State to ensure that we continue constructing state-of-the-art healthcare facilities that will form the backbone of the ANC’s National Health Insurance (NHI). Together, these allocations to Limpopo and the Free State are not only about Treasury calculations, formulas, or financial tables – they actually demonstrate a people-centred approach that listens and acts on the pain felt by poor and working-class households.

HONOURABLE MEMBERS,

If we seriously want to restore the ANC-led government’s credibility, we must resist the temptation to spin the reality. Our people face healthcare crises.

The comments made by the PBO, COSATU, SECTION27, and countless other stakeholders during public hearings on this Amendment Bill reflect these healthcare crises. For example:

• South Africa has 1 doctor for every 3,000 patients – this is unsustainable.
• There are 2,147 unfilled medical posts, and more than 1,000 doctors resigned between January 2024 and January 2025 – literally our doctors sit at home while healthcare facilities cry for staff.
• Provincial budgets are experiencing long-term real declines relative to health demand – provincial health departments cannot do more with less forever.

HONOURABLE MEMBERS,

Supporting this Amendment Bill does not mean we ignore these healthcare crises. We demand – loudly and clearly – the following interventions:

• Funding ring-fenced to absorb unemployed health practitioners.
• Climate-proof healthcare infrastructure.
• Rapid response to underspending to prevent inefficiencies in the health system.
• Real roadmap for NHI readiness.
• Protection of frontline services from fiscal consolidation.

HONOURABLE MEMBERS,

In conclusion, our Parliament is strongest when we stand with the poor and vulnerable, when we protect frontline workers, and when we deliver healthcare facilities that work.

To the poor and working-class South Africans, I say:

The ANC is restoring public health system. We are putting public health system and your dignity at the heart of the national budget.

I thank you.