Civil society organisations have criticised the government for its plans to reduce expenditure on health and even on critical programmes such as HIV.

Documents released by the National Treasury on the budget show that consolidated government health expenditure is expected to surge from a revised estimate of R247bn in 2020/2021 to R249bn in 2021/2022, and then drop to R246bn in 2022/2023. It will fall to R245bn in the 2023/2024 financial year...