SACP rejects Ramaphosa's decision to suspend National Health Insurance

THE South African Communist Party (SACP) has learned with great disappointment of the decision of President Cyril Ramaphosa to suspend the implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI).

- MBULELO MANDLANA

As reported on Friday, this decision is framed as a consequence of legal challenges currently being pursued by right-wingers in the courts against the NHI and its implementation.

This is hardly a justification that can be accepted by any reasonable progressive person, and as the SACP, we reject it outrightly as not only opportunistic and irrational but also as blatantly reactionary. May 2026, two months from now, will be two full years since the NHI was signed into law, and since then the government has provided numerous justifications to explain its clear unwillingness to implement the NHI.

The SACP always anticipated such attacks against the NHI, however.