The civil rights organisation AfriForum demands in a legal letter that the Gauteng Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Health and Wellness immediately stop the public hearings on the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill. This follows after it came to the organisation’s attention that public hearings are taking place without the times or dates thereof being sufficiently advertised.

AfriForum prepared an oral presentation and waited for information to be given about the details of the public hearings. Although no notice was given on the website of the Gauteng Legislature or in the media, two public hearings have already taken place in this province with only a Facebook post notifying the public thereof. There are also only three public hearings scheduled in Gauteng while seven public hearings are taking place in the Western Cape.

According to AfriForum, it is unacceptable that the Gauteng Legislature does not give the residents of this province a proper opportunity to give their input on such a dangerous bill and therefore the organisation demands that the current public hearings be stopped, so that it can be rescheduled and properly advertised.

“It is clear that the authorities are not interested in hearing or considering informed views of the public, but have simply chosen a bill on ideological grounds and are now determined to push it through without proper public participation,” says Louis Boshoff, AfriForum’s spokesperson on the NHI. “This negligence of the ANC government exposes both their blatant bias, as well as their inability to fulfill basic administrative duties.”

Meanwhile, AfriForum encourages members of the public to send written comments against the NHI to the provincial authorities at www.jougesondheid.co.za.