The organisations said they ‘remained concerned’ about the lack of transparency from the government in response to the crisis.
A group of health and human rights organisations released a public letter on Tuesday, 18 March, calling on the government to provide a “coordinated emergency plan and increased budget for healthcare services” to mitigate the crisis created by the United States’ move to suspend foreign assistance.
The non-governmental organisations (NGOs) emphasised the need for transparency in the development of a plan to alleviate the impact on the healthcare sector, following the temporary suspension of the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar).
Pepfar was suspended after US President Donald Trump in January issued an executive order pausing almost all US foreign development assistance for 90 days, pending a review.
On 26 February, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — which distributed about half the Pepfar funding for SA, alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — issued notices terminating its Pepfar funding to South African organisations for good, Daily Maverick’s Tamsin Metelerkamp reported.
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“During this time, SA Pepfar partners that received stop-work orders, then waivers, have since received termination notices (prior to the 90-day expiry), and some CDC-funded partners received return to work orders until September 2025. The complete list of cancelled contracts is not known. Several clinical trials have been halted or ended prematurely. Thousands of NGO academic workers have been retrenched and services and key testing, counselling, prevention and treatment programmes disrupted or closed,” stated the letter.
“Despite the government indicating that it is seized with the matter and that the National Department of Health (NDoH) is seeking to make provincial arrangements to absorb some services and staff via the public health system, right now, specialised programmes and services are severely affected, and urgent adaptation measures are needed.”
The signatories to the letter included the Health Justice Initiative, the Treatment Action Campaign, SECTION27, African Alliance, Cancer Alliance, Sweat and the Public Service Accountability Monitor at Rhodes University.
The letter was addressed to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola and President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The organisations previously wrote to Motsoaledi, Godongwana, Lamola and Ramaphosa on 5 and 24 February.
“To date we have not received a response to our questions and concerns,” they said.
Lack of transparency
While Motsoaledi has maintained his department was working on ways of addressing the crisis, the groups said, “None of us are privy to the exact plan so far. We remain concerned that there is not enough transparency in the government’s handling of this matter.”
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