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The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls on the Minister of Health to come clean and state once and for all, what the extent of the provincial overspend is, as the DA understands that it could be as high as R12 billion.

The DA believes that the KwaZulu-Natal Health Department has exhausted its R3.5 billion overdraft and has applied for additional funding. This, we are led to believe has resulted in a team from ABSA having to go to London to seek special permission for the extension.

KwaZulu-Natal is not alone in this respect, as the Eastern Cape and Gauteng overdrafts have also reached the R2 billion mark.

The financial crisis within the health sector is deepening as bad management and poor systems exacerbate the problem.

It is clear that the funding of the nurses OSD is the main culprit for the over-expenditure; clearly the administration had no idea about the cost associated with the OSD. On the face of it, National Treasury also failed to verify the figures given by the health department and so approved the OSD system for nurses.

There was a R7 billion overspend in the 2008/09 financial year and the situation is snowballing. I have submitted parliamentary questions to both the Ministers of Finance and Health with regards to the overspending and the underestimation of the OSD bill.