House Chair, this Special Appropriation bill covers the additional allocation following the withdrawal of the PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, USA) funding.
Now, let’s just put this into context. Our country received $8billion (or about R140billion) from the US since 2003. This is besides the US funding from the Global Fund. We were already warned by the US in 2019, so the withdrawal should not be unexpected, given the heightened tensions between the two countries.
The ACDP supports these allocations given the life-saving treatment that they fund, but it must be seen against the ANC’s foreign policy choices.
Again, we emphasise that we do need to protect our sovereignty over health and we need to ensure that our health services are properly financed.
However, the ANC’s ill-conceived foreign policy choices are now coming home to roost.
It is no secret that the ANC favours policies which align more broadly with Russia and China, putting it in conflict with the US and other Western nations that stand for more free market principles. How much has Russia, China or Iran for that matter, donated to this country? Nothing!
And, while the GNU comprises various parties with different viewpoints, the ACDP encourages those parties in the GNU to start questioning these foreign policy decisions.
We are at the crossroads of global realignment and when the fork in the road is clear and the choices are clear—to knowingly choose the wrong path is clearly unwise.
“Folly,” wrote historian Barbara Tuchman, “is when leaders knowingly choose the wrong path”, and that we seem to be doing continually.
Whilst government tries to present its foreign policy in a neutral non-aligned tone, its actions do not match its words, including failing to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and now, failing to condemn the massacre of innocent civilians in Iran. This is disgraceful!
As we speak, we’re hosting a very provocative naval exercise with China, the UAE, Iran and Russia. Iran and Russia are both heavily sanctioned and involved in active conflicts. China is expanding its military at an unbelievable pace, threatening Japan and rehearsing for a possible invasion of Taiwan, and persecuting millions of Christians and Muslim Uyghurs in China—yet nothing is said about that.
Clearly, we need a realignment of our policies and as we stand at the crossroads, let us heed the warning of the prophet, Jeremiah: “Ask for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is and walk in it and you’ll find rest for your souls. But you said we will not walk in it.”
Now we are bearing the results of those folly decisions.
I thank you.
