Ramakgopa says she's mandated to negotiate on govt's behalf after alleged NHI 'side deal'

JOHANNESBURG - The Minister of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation - Maropene Ramakgopa - says she is mandated to negotiate on behalf of the government following reports of an alleged NHI "side deal".

News24 recently reported that Ramakgopa reached a deal with the Democratic Alliance (DA)'s leader - John Steenhuisen - to save private medical care in the country when the National Health Insurance kicks in.

Steenhuisen has acknowledged the existence of such a deal however, the Office of the President and Health Ministry say they are in the dark.

Speaking during a media briefing in Parliament on Friday, Ramakgopa says there are several policy disagreements in the Government of National Unity (GNU) that her departments must mediate.

“The DPME [Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation] is the lead in terms of making sure that the plan of government becomes one and there is agreement. We went through a number of processes and different lekgotlas where there wasn’t necessarily agreement on everything and we had to negotiate. We would negotiate ourselves with different people and different stakeholders.”

Ramakgopa says affected departments are not necessarily informed during the negotiation period.

“So we don’t call a meeting to say come here all of you, and this is what’s happening but we would go to engage each and every person that brings a new thing that may not necessarily be something that would be agreed upon, but we would put anything that is new, that hasn’t been informed to the other people that would be affected by it.”