| Universal access to healthcare | Climate change | Food security |
| Social grants | Basic income grant | Tuberculosis |
| HIV | Corruption | Gender-based violence |
Here’s what the African National Congress says about health issues.
Universal access to healthcare
The ANC says the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill will become law and be rolled out over the next five years to give everyone access to the same healthcare system — as opposed to South Africa’s current two-tier (public and private) system. The national health department has already started to appoint staff. In 2022, the minister of public service and administration approved positions for 44 technical experts who would advise the NHI and heads for four of the five chief directorates had been appointed by July 2023. Universal health coverage — which gives everyone access to the same basic health services regardless of whether they can pay for it — is a 2030 sustainable development goal. The ANC’s plan for universal health coverage is the NHI.
Over the next five years, an ANC government will create electronic health records for patients (the process has already started: currently a combination of electronic and paper records is used in government hospitals and clinics); expand the Ideal Clinic programme (this programme is used to systematically upgrade primary healthcare facilities in preparation for the NHI); collaborate with other countries on research around traditional medicines and the development of products; and put tighter measures in place to curb corruption with health tenders and contracts. The ANC doesn’t say how much implementing these plans will cost or where the money will come from.
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Climate Change
The ANC says it will make South Africa a climate-friendly place. To achieve this, the party will, for instance, invest in producing electric cars and green hydrogen. (Feeding hydrogen gas into a system that contains two electrodes, one positive and one negative, creates electricity. Later, hydrogen combines with oxygen again to form water. Generating electricity in this way doesn’t produce any carbon dioxide, unlike burning coal or oil, hence it’s a “green” energy.) The ANC also says it will fix the country’s broken rail system (over the past decade, the country’s railway services virtually collapsed), so that the country has climate-friendly public transport. (Road vehicles like cars and trucks make up about three-quarters of carbon emissions from transport. Per kilometre travelled, trains emit much less carbon than cars, trucks or planes.) The effects of climate change — a hotter Earth and more droughts and storms — will increase lung diseases, make HIV and TB spread faster, and allow diseases transmitted by insect hosts, such as malaria, to spread to countries where they’ve never been experienced before.
The ANC will ensure a just energy transition (a just transition means switching to climate-friendly energy sources to power our lives without workers in the current energy system losing their jobs unfairly). The ANC’s manifesto doesn’t say how much a just transition would cost.
The ANC says, in the next five years, its government will work with other countries and recommit South Africa “to take forward its responsibilities in the fight against climate change, global poverty and inequality in line with applicable international resolutions”. One international commitment that South Africa has signed up for, which the ANC doesn’t specify in its manifesto, is to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Net zero means the amount of greenhouse gases we emit (which mostly comes from burning coal, oil and gas for producing electricity or fuelling vehicles) balances out with the amount the Earth’s ecosystems can naturally absorb so that there’s no build-up of these gases in the atmosphere where they form a layer which traps heat and results in the Earth heating up. To keep global warming, as a result of too many greenhouse gases emitted into the air, to a level at which the Earth continues to be liveable, greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and we need to reach net zero by 2050. More than 190 countries, including South Africa, signed up to the Paris Agreement to reach these targets. Each country has individual targets that feed into the global target, depending on how much they contribute to climate change. Here are South Africa’s targets.
The ANC says, over the next five years, the party will “promote cheaper and subsidised solar power”. By how much, and for whom, isn’t specified in the manifesto.
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Food security
An ANC government will, over the next five years, lower food prices by exempting more foods from VAT, helping communities to grow food in their own gardens and speeding up the redistribution of land in South Africa so that more people have land on which they can grow food. The ANC doesn’t specify how many more foods, and which ones, the party plans on exempting from VAT.
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Social grants
The ANC says, in addition to already existing grants such as the child support grant (currently R530 per month per child) and state pension (from 1 April: R2 180 per month or R2 200 per month, depending on someone’s age), it will phase in a basic income support grant (within the next five years) for unemployed people. Almost a third (32.1%) of SA is unemployed, according to Stats SA. The party says it will also make sure that no one pays workers less than the national minimum wage (the current minimum wage is R27.58 per hour) and that this payment increases in line with inflation. The ANC doesn’t specify how much a basic income grant would be or what the budget implications will be, but it does say it would use the social relief of distress grant “as a mechanism towards phasing in a basic income support grant”. A social relief of distress grant is currently R370 per month.
Click here to go to the elections manifesto analysis tool.
Basic income grant
The ANC says, in addition to already existing grants such as the child support grant (currently R530 per month per child) and state pension (from 1 April: R2 180 per month or R2 200 per month, depending on someone’s age), it will phase in a basic income support grant (within the next five years) for unemployed people. Almost a third (32.1%) of SA is unemployed, according to Stats SA. The party says it will also make sure that no one pays workers less than the national minimum wage (the current minimum wage is R27.58 per hour) and that this payment increases in line with inflation. The ANC doesn’t specify how much a basic income grant would be or what the budget implications will be, but it does say it would use the social relief of distress grant “as a mechanism towards phasing in a basic income support grant”. A social relief of distress grant is currently R370 per month.
Click here to go to the elections manifesto analysis tool.
Tuberculosis
The ANC doesn’t specifically address tuberculosis in its manifesto. TB kills more people than any other illness in South Africa.
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HIV
The ANC says it will address things like bullying, discrimination against people’s choice of sexuality, teenage pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, but it doesn’t say how.
Click here to go to the elections manifesto analysis tool.
Corruption
Over the next five years, the ANC will “eradicate corruption”, improve governance and public service, work with communities “to deliver quality and reliable basic services … and maintain and build new infrastructure”.
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Gender-based violence
To end gender-based violence (GBV), the ANC will implement the country’s National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, expand victim support services, like the Thuthuzela Care Centres and GBV desks at police stations, and run public campaigns against toxic masculinity, sexism and homophobia.
