South Africa’s healthcare worker shortages are arguably the country’s biggest healthcare story, yet government leaders have failed to tackle them, according to an editorial. It accompanies an investigation by journalist Sue Segar into unemployed doctors who protested for jobs in KwaZulu-Natal earlier this year. Unemployed doctors amid staff shortages According to the editorial, many of the protesting doctors are committed…
Tag: Auditor-General
-
Provincial Health Departments Pose a Significant Fiscal Risk
Weak financial controls in provincial health departments pose significant fiscal risks, according to Treasury’s medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS), tabled in Parliament on Wednesday. Treasury highlighted unpaid obligations, mounting debts and medico-legal claims as key pressures on health budgets. Audit Outcomes and Unpaid Bills Five of the nine provincial health departments received qualified audits for 2025/2026, the Auditor-General told Parliament…
-
Road Accident Fund Insolvency has Deep Roots, Scopa Told
Former Road Accident Fund (RAF) board members have told Parliament that the fund’s crisis is not new. They said the RAF has faced sustained financial distress for more than three decades. In their account, liabilities have exceeded assets since at least 1981. That, they argued, left the fund “technically insolvent” for decades. The testimony was delivered to Parliament’s standing committee…
-
Gauteng Health Budget Underspending Exposes Service Pressure
The provincial health department’s failure to spend its budget has once again placed Gauteng’s health system under the spotlight. This comes even as hospitals deteriorate and frontline gaps widen. The Gauteng health department projects an underspend of R725 million for the 2025–26 financial year ending 31 March. This is according to an official reply from the finance and economic development…
-
Afrox Unpaid Invoices: Lawsuit Exposes Provincial Health Debt
African Oxygen (Afrox), a major supplier of medical gases to South Africa’s state hospitals, has taken the national and provincial health departments to court over R360m in unpaid invoices, some dating back to 2017. The High Court action in Pretoria signals a deepening payment crisis across provincial health systems and raises fresh concerns about the stability of public hospital supply…
-
RAF Insolvency exposed by Senior Actuary
A former senior actuary at the Road Accident Fund (RAF) has delivered explosive testimony to Parliament. He described a controversial accounting change as an “accounting sleight of hand.” Management designed this to mask the fund’s actual insolvency and mislead the public. In a damning affidavit submitted to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), Itayi Charakupa, the RAF’s former senior…
-
Road Accident Fund Bonuses Scrutinised by Scopa
The Road Accident Fund (RAF) paid R231.7 million in bonuses during a financial year. These Road Accident Fund bonuses came under scrutiny when, during the same year, the RAF received an adverse audit opinion from the Auditor-General of South Africa, as Parliament heard on Monday. The revelation, contained in the fund’s latest annual report, has become a focal point for…
-
RAF Insolvent with R27.8 Billion Deficit Woes
The Road Accident Fund (RAF) is insolvent, with a R27.8 billion accumulated deficit, decades-old claims backlogs, and severe governance failures, Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has heard. The fund’s leadership and the Auditor-General have acknowledged the RAF’s insolvent state. They painted a grim picture of an entity in deep operational and financial crisis. RAF officials confirmed to the…