South Africa's Public Health System has been allocated 21 and a half billion rand more to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, but there's no strategy to guide how it should be used. This is according to Professor Alex van den Heever, a Health Economics and Financing specialist at the Wits School of Governance. Referring to the supplementary budget, tabled last week by the Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, van den Heever says that while the exercise was meant to make more money available for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, it sheds no light on prioritising prevention over treatment of the virus. Does this then speak to the bigger problem of planning, policy, public accountability and governance in South Africa? Joining us via zoom are Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi, the Executive Director at the Public Accountability Research Institute, and Professor Van den Heever.
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