State meets funders in bid to plug $440m gap from loss of US aid

The government has started urgent discussions with various local and global funding organisations to fill a budget shortfall in its HIV/Aids treatment programme.

US President Donald Trump halted almost to $440m in funding for SA’s ARV treatment programme, cutting that aid from the US President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief (Pepfar), set up by George W Bush.

The withdrawal of funding has placed the jobs of at least 15,000 health workers at risk, and are fears that it could also result in the collapse of the ARV treatment programme.

Addressing MPs during a debate on the matter, which was sponsored by EFF leader Julius Malema, health minister Aaron Motsoaledi said funding talks have started with philanthropic and prominent domestic and international foundations to plug the gap.

“In the meantime, we have met many funders, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Elmar Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office of the UK, our own FirstRand, the trustees of the Solidarity Fund — not the Solidarity that ran to Trump but the Solidarity Fund established during Covid,” Motsoaledi said.

“I want to emphasise that there’s no government or funder in the world that has put money aside waiting for Trump to explode. That’s why we’re meeting them but none of them [are yet saying] we’re giving you this much. Trump does not owe us a cent.”

Motsoaledi, who is a strong proponent of the National Health Insurance scheme, said the moment also called for a review of subsidised private medical schemes, the members of which claimed billions of rand in tax rebates from Sars.

“I am challenging this house to come and debate in this house, why, all of us in this house, including all well-to-do South Africans, why are we still getting heavy subsidies to stay on private medical aid? Is it favour, should we be doing that in this difficult time,” he said.

In his speech Malema argued that Trump’s immediate halting of Pepfar was to punish SA for its stance against Israel and its decision to charge that country at the International Court of Justice.

The EFF also said Trump was penalising Pretoria for its enactment of the Expropriation Act, which allows for expropriation of land in the public interest.

Malema said parties in parliament, and the country at large, needed to unite and push back against Trump’s “bullying tactics”.

“This government refuses to acknowledge the real issue: we are being punished for supporting Palestine against apartheid Israel, nothing else.

“The US does not believe there is white genocide or land grabs in SA. These lies are useful tools to justify economic aggression and seek to weaken our moral authority to condemn Israel’s genocide.

“Foreign aid has always been a tool of Western imperialism and control; it must end with SA. We must expand our trade and strengthen relations with China, India, Russia, Brazil and Singapore while emphasising African unity.

“The US is on a fool’s mission to extort the world into submission and as a result will become increasingly isolated.”

Malema also said he welcomed the funding options Motsoaledi was pursuing.

TimesLIVE