The state faces a lawsuit from an essential national health service provider claiming R360m in unpaid invoices, some from eight years ago, adding to the departments’ troubles after the auditor-general recently flagged eight provinces for R24bn in unpaid bills. Economist Prof Alex van den Heever has warned that the public health sector trend of non-payment, bankrupted businesses in the health sector and could lead to companies refusing to work for the state. African Oxygen (Afrox), which supplies medical gases to state hospitals nationally, has turned to the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to force provincial health departments to pay R360m (with accumulating interest).
The company, which has a supply agreement with the National Treasury from 2017 to supply medical gases to hospitals, accuses all nine provincial health departments of being bad payers and pins its litigation on breach of the National Treasury’s 30 days to pay service providers. The Eastern Cape health department, which has a budget of R31bn in 2025/2026, owes the highest amount of R90m with some unpaid invoices dating back to 2017.
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