Revised health spending plan slated all round

Civil society organisations have criticised the government for its plans to reduce expenditure on health and even on critical programmes such as HIV/Aids.

Documents released by the National Treasury on the budget show consolidated government health expenditure is expected to surge from a revised estimate of R247bn in 2020/2021 to R249bn in 2021/2022, and then drop to R246bn in 2022/2023. It will fall to R245bn in the 2023/2024 financial year.

The HIV/Aids component of the HIV/Aids, tuberculosis, malaria and community outreach grant will be cut by R6.4bn over the three-year period. The government has allocated R69.3bn to the HIV/Aids component of this grant over the medium-term expenditure framework.

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