Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is not a man to be envied today. Mboweni is delivering his budget speech and has to convince South Africans that the economy can be revived.
Weak growth, ballooning debt and cash-guzzling State-Owned Enterprises are expected to feature strongly when he delivers the 2020 Budget. We will implement it incrementally, and aim to cover the whole country by 2025. We will use an affordable approach to progressively move towards a comprehensive NHI environment,” he said.
For the City and the province struggling with an ever-increasing population, the strain on its healthcare services is huge. Mayco member for community safety and health Zahid Badroodien said the City supports the principles of universal healthcare, but until serious shortcomings in the draft legislation is clarified and addressed, the City cannot support the bill in its current form.
“There are serious shortcomings, particularly around primary healthcare and the mandate of local government in terms of environmental health. We also have no clarity from the bill on how the City’s financial contribution to the delivery of personal primary healthcare would be affected, or where the funding for preventative and promotive healthcare would come from as the bill only speaks to curative healthcare,” said Badroodien.
The provincial healthcare sector faces major challenges, among them the ongoing morbidity and mortality rate due to HIV and TB, the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases and increasing mortality secondary to interpersonal violence. Chairperson of the SA Human Rights Commission Bongani Majola visited the Western Cape earlier this month to inspect the state of public healthcare facilities in the province.
He said despite being well run, public healthcare facilities were not coping with population demands, lacked adequate infrastructure, and faced a shortage of skilled healthcare workers.
In other news – Pearl Thusi – I only found respect as an actress in SA after landing a role in the hit US series
Actress Pearl Thusi may be one of the country’s top actresses, but she says she felt like South Africans only took her seriously after she acted in the US drama series Quantico. Speaking to Cosmopolitan, Pearl said one of her biggest disappointments was only being valued after securing an international gig.
It saddens me that the only time I truly became valued as an actor in SA was after I got an international gig,” she said, adding that her disappointment only accelerated her drive to build a more spirited African entertainment industry. She shared some advice to young actors, who she feels often get a raw deal in the industry. Read more
Source: eNCA
