South Africa’s health minister appoints team to address NHLS crisis
UA.NEWS13
October
2026
03:12
<a href="https://absafricatv.com/who-is-navi-pillay-the-south-<a href="https://absafricatv.com/new-hub-for-african-cinema-opens-in-uk-capital/” title=”New hub for African cinema opens in UK capital”>african-judge-who-won-the-nobel-prize-we-asked-her-biographer/” title=”Who is Navi Pillay, the South African judge who won the Nobel prize? We asked her biographer”>South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has appointed a three-person team to help address the governance crisis at the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS). The institution failed to submit its annual report for the 2025/26 financial year to parliament by the deadline, TimesLIVE reports.
The group includes former NHLS board chair Eric Buch, Compensation Commissioner Barry Kistnasamy, and Health Department Deputy Director-General for Regulation and Compliance Anban Pillay. Motsoaledi told the parliamentary health committee that the NHLS has “very serious governance problems” requiring urgent intervention.
Deteriorating audit outcomes
In recent years, the NHLS’s audit outcomes have deteriorated: in the 2022/23 financial year, the service received an unqualified audit opinion; the following year, it received a qualified opinion; and in 2024/25, it received a disclaimer of opinion. Such a result means that the institution’s records are in such poor condition that the auditor cannot form an opinion.
This year, the NHLS also missed the statutory deadline for submitting its 2025/26 financial statements to the Auditor-General’s office and has yet to complete its annual report. Last week, the parliamentary committee decided not to consider the service’s presentation on the report because its financial statements had not been audited.
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Provincial debts and laboratory operations
An NHLS spokesperson said the institution expects to complete its annual report for 2025/26 by November. According to him, the deterioration in results is linked to longstanding weaknesses in internal controls, while some of the necessary changes require multi-year institutional reform.
He noted that the audit findings concern primarily financial management and supply chain management, rather than the scientific accuracy of laboratory tests. The NHLS conducts more than 140 million tests annually.
The National Treasury told parliament that in June, provincial health departments owed the NHLS 10.6 billion rand, compared with 7.8 billion rand at the end of the 2023/24 financial year. The largest amounts were owed by Gauteng Province — 3.5 billion rand, KwaZulu-Natal — 1.2 billion rand, and the Eastern Cape Province — 1 billion rand.
