Ramphosa: Govt learned lessons from COVID corruption, won't repeat that with NHI

JOHANNESBURG - President Cyril Ramaphosa said that government had learned lessons from COVID-19 corruption and would not repeat that with the National Health Insurance (NHI).

Last week, Ramaphosa signed NHI into law, triggering a wave of criticism from opposition parties and organisations.

READ: EXPLAINER: What you need to know about NHI

NHI is a financing scheme that will allow government to pay for certain medical procedures at public and private healthcare facilities.

Some of the criticism against the NHI has been that the current government is ill-equipped to carry it out successfully without corruption.

While there has been no budget yet, the NHI is expected to cost the government billions in taxpayer money once in full effect.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said that government would not repeat the mistakes it made with the procurement of COVID personal protective equipment.

"Incidents of corruption is something that you curb as you learn, you learn on the job as it were. As you learn, you then close the loopholes because people who want to steal will always find loopholes."

Ramaphosa said there were people who were against universal healthcare as a concept and would not support it under any circumstances.