After a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday, business leaders said the government had committed to more engagements to hear their alternative National Health Insurance Act proposals.

Listen to this article 6 min Listen to this article 6 min The meeting on Tuesday between President Cyril Ramaphosa and SA's prominent business leaders about the contentious National Health Insurance (NHI) Act has yielded one outcome: a commitment to more discussions to resolve differences of opinion.

Arguably, this is the merry-go-round that business leaders are finding themselves in since the government signed into law the NHI Act, just days before the general election in May.

Business leaders told Daily Maverick their meeting with Ramaphosa was "constructive", especially the government's "openness to engage" further on aspects of the NHI Act that had vexed them.

Business Unity SA (Busa) CEO Cas Coovadia, who attended the meeting, said the government had committed to more engagements with business leaders to hear their proposals on resolving the impasse over the Act.

"We have indicated that we want to engage on sections of the NHI Act that we are not happy with. The President has agreed to engage further, and that is constructive", Coovadia, who leads the country's largest business organisation, told Daily Maverick.

Martin Kingston, Business for SA (B4SA) chair, said the difference this time with NHI Act engagements was that business leaders had...