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NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Trump Executive Order a rude awakening

Editorials
Trump last week suspended foreign aid funding for 90 days to review the policy to determine if it is consistent with American interests, with many countries, particularly those in Africa, getting a rude awakening considering that they have a tendency of not funding their social services.

THE Executive Order recently signed by United States President Donald Trump has exposed pertinent issues we have, for years, been raising on this platform.

Trump last week suspended foreign aid funding for 90 days to review the policy to determine if it is consistent with American interests, with many countries, particularly those in Africa, getting a rude awakening considering that they have a tendency of not funding their social services.

For years, Zimbabwe has been failing to apportion 15% of its total budget to the health sector, in line with the Abuja Declaration of 2001, a pledge made by African Union member States.

On February 9, 2024, the government gazetted Statutory Instrument 16 of 2024, which introduced a surtax on the sugar content in beverages.

Revenue from the tax will procure cancer machines and drugs, according to Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion minister Mthuli Ncube.

In December, the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights through their lawyers Kantor & Immerman wrote to Treasury requesting information on how much had been raised since the special tax came into effect and what cancer machines has been procured.

A few days later, Ncube’s permanent secretary George Guvamatanga responded to the rights doctors saying government had realised US$30,8 million and referred the doctors to the Health and Child Care ministry on what the money had been used for.

Health and Child Care permanent secretary Aspect Maunganidze also wrote to the doctors saying they had not received the medical professionals’ request.

But even if the ministry has not received the doctors’ letter, it must provide the information since this is a matter of national interest.

If the Health ministry, indeed, bought cancer machinery, it should just state where it distributed the equipment or drugs to, so that cancer patients can quickly go and access them.

When government fumbles with simple answers, it gives the impression that the money could have been used on other things other than the intended purposes.

Nothing much is being said about the Aids Levy: How much was raised, say last year alone? How many people have benefited, what machinery has been bought, etc?

Most of our health programmes were being funded by developmental partners and foreign governments, with the US being one of the major contributors to the sector.

That the government is failing to budget for our health sector means we are in big trouble.

Many countries are reeling from the US Executive Order and they will soon, too, cut foreign aid.

It will have a ripple effect.

Last June, one of the major funders of HIV and Aids programmes in Zimbabwe, the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, notified government that it will terminate funding for condom programming within the next 30 months, which means by end of 2026.

Condom programming remains one of the key pillars under the five UNAids prevention pillars and Zimbabwe has since managed to attain the 95-95-95 HIV targets among adults ahead of schedule.

If the US goes ahead with discontinuing the funding of the condom programme in the absence of a solid domestic financing mechanism for HIV programmes, it will plunge Zimbabwe’s HIV response into obvious uncertainty.

Authorities must seriously consider funding health programmes so that the poor can access services at local facilities as they do not have the wherewithal to travel other countries for treatment, like the rich and powerful do.

What a dose of cold, hard truth!

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