Independent Media reports that pressure is mounting on the National Treasury to avail funds to pay for the overtime of staff administering the Covid-19 vaccinations on weekends.

The Department of Health has blamed a lack of funds for overtime for not conducting vaccinations on weekends. On Thursday, the Democratic Alliance (DA) added its voice in the calls that vaccination should take place throughout the week. DA leader John Steenhuisen pointed out that 15 months into the pandemic, less than 1% of South Africans had been fully vaccinated. Geordin Hill-Lewis, the party’s finance spokesperson, said the DA was calling on the National Treasury to release the funds needed to pay for staff overtime so that vaccinations could be done over weekends. “It is simply not true that there are no funds to pay staff over weekends, as Department of Health officials have argued. It is totally unacceptable to stop (or drastically slow down) vaccinations over weekends, when the funds are available to prevent these delays,” Hill-Lewis said. He pointed out that the National Treasury had allocated R6 billion this year to fund the vaccine roll-out and R9bn was budgeted in the contingency reserve for vaccine roll-out if necessary. “Now is the time to ensure this budgeted money is made available to provincial departments to speed up the rollout,” Hill-Lewis argued.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Mayibongwe Maqhina at Independent Media

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