CASH FOR THE IDLE, DEATH FOR THE SICK

DIABETES patients are faced with a life threatening situation. There is no insulin injection at public hospitals because the Ministry of Health has allegedly been unable to pay suppliers. Health experts say a prolonged absence of the drug could lead to death. Most pharmacies reported running out of the injection due to the high demand by those who can afford to buy it while the Ministry of Health cannot say when it would be made available.

 This is not the first and certainly not the last we hear of drug shortages given the apparent failure to treat this inefficiency with the seriousness it deserves. A ministry that can afford to dice with the lives of people that it is mandated to save, is a dangerous ministry.

Sadly, it is not the drug shortages that have been dominating proceedings in Parliament the past week but a no-win debate over the planned construction of a multimillion house for the prime minister and efforts to save the Royal Swazi Airways that was launched without a plan of survival to begin with.

Some people have argued that we need attractive perks for the position of prime minister in order to get a good calibre of individuals necessary to deliver a sound economy for this country. While this may be true, we need to borrow from one of the prime minister’s favourite idioms: ‘Let us cut our coat to suit our cloth’ which basically means let us plan our aims and activities in line with available resources.

Surely, therefore, the PM should be the first to order that such a benefit be deferred until such time that the country is in a fiscal position to afford this benefit. After all, he is not desperate for a house come end of term.
The same logic should apply to the national airline. We have placed the cart way ahead of the horse on this project. A lot of homework was needed to make a case to warrant the need. With airlines crumbling all around us, and coupled with the failures of our own airline some years ago, only a foolproof strategy would do.

The losses of South African National Airways have doubled according to the latest results and we cannot afford to fly into the same clouds without giving good reason to the citizens of the region for them to opt for our air services over and above everybody else in the SADC region. Now we are faced with bailing out an entity that can hardly buy a plane.

To the man on the street, all this boils down to having a government that has money to pay for people doing nothing while over thousands of people are left to start planning their funerals because government can’t afford to pay suppliers of their much needed medication.

In 2015 over 1 000 people died of diabetes and we must begin to question just how many of these deaths were caused by the shortage of this essential drug?
Principal Secretary in the Health Ministry Dr Simon Zwane, says they are in negotiations with suppliers but had no definite date for the availability of the much needed drug.

Parliament may have passed the national budget and funds are expected to be released soon, but at what cost? How many lives would have been affected by the failure to ensure there are sufficient drugs for patients throughout the year just as there are salaries for those employed in financial drains?
The stance by suppliers is not surprising. Government has adopted an insensate attitude towards service providers and it is no wonder this economy is faced with the challenges that it has.

 Many companies are confronted with cash flow problems as a result of delayed or non payment. This despite that we were made to believe that government had adopted an improved system of authorising purchase orders against available funds. Clearly it is paper money.

At the end of the day, when a country fails to provide a basic service for its people, the effect of which is a possible loss of lives, then you know there may not be a promising future ahead of us.

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