HIV/Aids is the single biggest health crisis - supplementary questions to the Deputy President (16 March 2005)
The StatsSA report is further confirmation that HIV/AIDS is the single biggest health crisis that this country has ever faced. Supposedly SANAC was created specifically to address the seriousness of this pandemic, which is why the Chairmanship was assigned to the Deputy President. However SANAC meets infrequently and seems to contribute little to the fight against this pandemic.

A related state-sponsored body the National AIDS Trust, also chaired by the Deputy President and meant to advise the Minister of Health has reportedly never sat once! A budget of R30 million has gone unspent, apart from a half a million Rand to rent offices which have not been used.

The Director General of Health has been reported in the media as saying the high caliber and busy schedules of the people who serve on the Trust made it impossible to gather simultaneously.

Given the track-record of these two HIV/AIDS bodies which the hon. Deputy President chairs, can he indicate why the public must accept Government’s often-claimed seriousness about the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

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