The government on Wednesday rejected a report by the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) that said it was not honouring its commitments to improve the lives of the poor.
The Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), quoting a Statistics SA report, said there had been an upward trend in the delivery of services in various sectors.
About 67,8% of households had access to public health care in 1995 and the number had increased to 69,4% in 1998, the GCIS said.
The SAHRC’s fourth annual economic and social rights report released in Johannesburg said health services were inadequate because of, among other things, the Health Department’s bureaucratic bungling.
”The most challenges facing the health system is to close the gap between policy initiatives and implementation.”
It said serious shortfalls included the unavailability of tests for the human immuno virus, pregnancy and Rhesus.
There was a lack of health equipment, drugs and human resources, as well as insufficient skills updating on tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases.
The report urged government to immediately carry out the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the treatment of mothers living with HIV and Aids, as well as their newly born babies.
Aids activists have accused government of largely ignoring last year’s court ruling.
The GCIS said there had been an increase in the number houses that had been built since 1995.
The proportion of households in formal housing was 65,8% in 1995 and 72,6% in 2000, it said.
The SAHRC report said the housing department’s failure to spend its allocated budget in the past financial year was contributing to a housing backlog.
”The department’s under-expenditure was about R100-million in the period and no reasons were provided for this.”
It said the trend of under-spending was evident in most provincial housing departments.
Other hindrances to the delivery of housing was the unavailability of suitable land and delays in transferring land to beneficiaries.
Meanwhile, the United Democratic Movement (UDM) said the African National Congress had became arrogant and refused to see the suffering it caused through its mismanagement of poverty and HIV/Aids.
”The government refuses to listen to the plight of millions of poor South Africans except to host extravagant pageants masquerading as imbizos,” UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said.
”These (imbizos) are designed to pretend that the government is listening because it is the year before an election.” – Sapa