EFF Medical Aid Scheme submission; Committee Programme

Meeting report

Opening Remarks

Chairperson Maseko opened the meeting and welcomed the Members who were in attendance.

She submitted the apologies and explained that the agenda for the meeting was to consider the submissions received but only the EFF had submitted thus far. After this was complete, the consideration of the Committee Programme would take place.

 Chairperson Parkies greeted the Sub-Committee and parliamentary Officials. Member Dr S Thembekwayo (EFF) would be presenting the submission on behalf of her party.

EFF Submission

Dr Thembekwayo explained that the EFF had raised concerns and objected to the PARMED Act No 28 of 1975 due to its unaffordability and compulsory association. It deprived Members the right to not be arbitrarily deprived of property. When the EFF participated in the 2014 State of Nation Address (SONA), the President and Commander in Chief of the party Julius Malema called on Parliament to scrap the Act. Parliamentary lawyers agreed with the EFF that it was unconstitutional however the ANC Caucus refused to scrap the Act. The EFF proposed that the act, in particular section 1, should be set aside for thorough review.

In November 2015, the EFF approached the Western Cape High Court and judgement was delivered subsequently that provisions of PARMED were inconsistent with the Constitution insofar that it:

• Made membership of the PARMED compulsory for certain office bearers, including judges of certain superior courts and Members of the national and certain provincial legislatures; and
• Provided for deductions to be made from their monthly salaries in respect of their contributions to the scheme.

The EFF sought consequential relief in the form of amending legislation within 12 months to make memberships voluntary and that pending the contemplated amendment, the current legislation should be read in a way that renders membership of the scheme voluntary with immediate effect. Impasses have remained unresolved as the court processes did not solve those.

In July 2017, the EFF requested the Speaker of the National Assembly to establish an Ad Hoc Committee on PARMED to amend the Act. The Speaker responded the following month to recommend the EFF approach the Chief Whips Forum to consult with the other political parties. The EFF complied at the end of October 2017 and it was agreed by all parties that PARMED would be best addressed through a Joint Ad Hoc Committee. In the following month the National Assembly adopted a draft resolution to establish such a Committee to look into and make recommendations on:

• The tariffs of members of the PARMED medical aid scheme;
• The need and possible options for other competitive medical aids for Members;
• The necessity of introducing amending legislation; and
• The impact on retired members of PARMED.

A deadline was set for the end of March of the current year for the committee.

Discussion

Chairperson Maseko thanked Dr Thembekwayo. The Sub-Committee’s recommendations to the Department would be based on input from all stakeholders - primary and secondary. In order to make amendments or to repeal the Act the Committee would need to be informed by all of the parties and stakeholders affected by it. The Magistrates have expressed interest in this. The former Members receiving PARMED on a continuity basis benefited from the Act but the sitting Members did not as much.

Chairperson Parkies said that the decision that the Sub-Committee ought to take to the administration was that a message must go out to the political parties that the last opportunity to make written submissions was happening and that those would be presented in the next meeting of the Sub-Committee.

Mr S Tleane (ANC) said that the Members of the Joint Committee had previously agreed that they should submit to the technical team ideas that would help to get out of rut that they found themselves in. Submissions were not only for political party Members but for any Member of the Ad Hoc Committee including stakeholders. The Committee was like a family and ideas needed to be shared to attain a combined goal. In his view, there were two things that needed to be done to solve the impasse: firstly, through amending the Act a space needed to be created to allow members to freely come in or leave to go to other medical schemes and secondly, it needed to be taken into consideration what other medical aid schemes had to offer and at what cost. The technical team could get the answers for those two points which would resolve the problem. There was the perception that other medical aid schemes were better than PARMED but he did not believe that was entirely true. A professional investigation and comparative study would answer to that. Essentially the premiums needed to be brought down and previously it was suggested that non-medical expenditure within the scheme itself needed to be brought down significantly. If there was to be another meeting without a concrete plan the problem would drag on into many meetings.

Dr Thembekwayo said it was agreed that submissions should be made, and out of those submissions received it would definitely help to arrive at a conclusion of a solution that would be viable and helpful for everyone.

Chairperson Maseko noted that there was a legal expert in the meeting who was also looking into the issue directed and guided by the received submission. She asked the Co-Chairperson to present the draft PARMED programme.

Draft PARMED Programme

Chairperson Parkies said that the views of the Members in the Committee were not contradicting each other. It was agreed that they needed options, the possibility of choosing a suitable medical aid scheme and the issue of the premiums being paid by members of PARMED. The engagement and views converged.

For the programme, it was thought that it would be politically prudent to invite PARMED to engage on its professional perspective. PARMED may say that it could be malleable and give options and reduce premiums if Salga were to join in. After receiving the input and views of PARMED, the Committee would be enabled to have a flow in terms of the convergence of views. The Sub-Committee’s engagement with Salga, the Magistrate Commission and PARMED would also be a necessity. This would happen during the same meeting due to time pressure and to enhance the effectiveness of the Committee. He suggested that communication with these stakeholders should take place as soon as the meeting was over so that they could all be prepared in time for the upcoming meeting in two weeks despite the recess. Salga has already confirmed that it would be in attendance. If any of the involved parties could not be available for the meeting it would retard the process.

The next meeting would engage with the Office of the Chief Justice and it should be communicated with as soon as possible. The Council for Medical Schemes would also be engaged in this meeting. If either of these parties said that they were unavailable for the date of the meeting, then they must commit to come to the meeting before with Salga and the rest as that would be a full day meeting anyway.

Soon after that, a meeting to consolidate the submissions received from primary stakeholders would take place. Lastly, by the end of October there would be a meeting with the broad Committee in which all Members must be in attendance to consider the progress report and the way forward.

Chairperson Parkies gave the specifics of the confirmed dates and times for all of the abovementioned meetings.

Chairperson Maseko thanked the Co-Chairperson and opened the floor for questions and comments.

Mr Tleane fully agreed with the programme as it was in line with what he wanted to be done with regards to the process. He said that while this programme was followed, the advocate and others should simultaneously evaluate the ideas put forward. The Committee should not rely on PARMED to bring solutions as it was the sick baby that needed to be cured.

Chairperson Maseko requested that the Committee Secretary make the EFF’s submission available. The draft programme gave specifics on what was wanted by the Committee from the stakeholders. PARMED must also include what it costed for an ordinary member versus the cost for Salga and a Magistrate as well as a complete breakdown of the cost for a member with varying amounts of dependents.

Dr Thembekwayo agreed with the programme as it was.

Advocate Anthea Gordan, Legal Advisor, Parliament, said that at this stage there was not much to contribute. She confirmed that the parliamentary officials had been involved in each step of the process thus far and had noted and considered everything brought forth. Legally, the big issue was around Section 1 of PARMED which limited membership. The technical team will begin putting together a preliminary draft with options as no decisions have been made yet taking into consideration all the input given.

Mr Tleane asked that the rest of the parties be told to hand over the final names of the people that had been chosen to participate in the Sub-Committee. Other than this, he agreed with the draft programme.

Chairperson Maseko said she would speak to the Chief Whips of the parties later during the day to organise that list and submit it as soon as possible. She expressed concern about the representation of the National Council of Provinces in the Sub-Committee as it was greatly outnumbered by the National Assembly.

Chairperson Parkies reiterated the early comment that the Committee was like a family and said the representation was not of great importance to him.

Chairperson Maseko understood the Co-Chairperson’s comment and said that the parties would need to manage their own caucus so that the chosen representative was fully informed. There could also be an alternate representative who would come from the other sector of Parliament. Irrespective of where the Members were placed or political parties, everyone had the same grievances and sought after the same outcome.

The meeting was adjourned.