Business Day (Johannesburg)
Linda Ensor
2 November 2009
Cape Town — The Department of Health would ask the Treasury for billions extra over the next three years to fund its HIV/AIDS treatment campaign, which was being scaled up dramatically, acting health director-general Kamy Chetty said on Friday.
This would bring the total for the comprehensive HIV/ AIDS conditional grant over the next three years to about R23bn from R19,2bn provided in the revised medium-term estimates.
The Treasury added R5,5bn to the HIV/AIDS grant over the next three years in the medium- term budget policy statement tabled in Parliament last week, but the department says it believes it needs R4bn more than this. The rise in state spending on the programme is in line with its prioritisation of the pandemic.
President Jacob Zuma said in the National Council of Provinces last week an urgent response was needed to the crisis, responsible for 60% of the deaths of people younger than 50 years. While SA had the largest antiretroviral programme in the world "we are not yet winning the battle".
Chetty told Parliament's committee on appropriations, now holding hearings on the medium- term budget policy statement, the department wanted R2,6bn more next year and R3,1bn and R4bn in the next two years over estimates in the provincial budgets and expenditure review.
She stressed the proposals were preliminary and had to be discussed and finalised with the Treasury. The proposals were based on estimates of people needing treatment.
The department was also doing modelling exercises with a view to an increase in the CD4 count from the current 200 at which an HIV patient becomes eligible for antiretroviral treatment. This would mean more people on treatment at higher cost.
The medium-term budget policy statement allocated R160m for the swine-flu campaign, R900m for HIV/AIDS and R30m to prepare a health strategy for the World Cup.
Chetty said extra funds allocated were to be administered by the national department rather than provinces to ensure they were used for their intended purposes. This was because of the seriousness of the programmes and because if the funds were transferred to provinces as part of their equitable shares they could be put to other uses.
Some provinces are likely to overspend this year because of the cost pressures on personnel costs arising from the introduction of the occupational specific dispensation and could be tempted to dip into the additional funds.
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