By Kwanele Dhladhla
The taxpayer will fork out E110 million to salvage financially challenged The Luke Commission (TLC), Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg has disclosed.
Out of the E110 million, a tranche of E30 million has already been released and further depleted by TLC to date.
The balance of E20 million which was allocated in the 2025 supplementary budget and another E60 million allocated in the 2025/2026 national budget, stands to be released soon after a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between TLC and Ministry of Health. This brings the total to be issued from the public purse to E110 million in less than two years.
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This was disclosed by Rijkenberg when reacting to submissions by Senate Ministry of Health Portfolio Committee during debate of the 2025/2026 financial year.
Senator Siphelele Mkhonta pledged full support for government’s intervention to fund TLC as it provides critical health assistance to the nation.
However, he requested that this entity should be audited just like any other organisation that receives funding from the government.
“Seemingly there is neither a MoU in place and a subvention relationship between government and TLC. Therefore, what is happening is setting a precedent.
Will the government do the same if approached by other entities in future?” Mkhonta wondered.
In response, the minister clarified that there was an initial E30 million released to TLC and there was a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in place detailing justification for the need for funding and where the funds were to be used.
Rijkenberg said the MoU explicitly stated that the subvention was a once-off and the two parties would later develop a Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreement.
However, he said in the beginning, TLC was not keen to be sub-vented but due to the challenges they faced later agreed to being sub-vented.
“The government is also not keen to have a subvention agreement with TLC but would rather have a PPP in place just like all the other PPPs the government has with other stakeholders.
PPPs are effective and most preferred because the government only pays for what they need,” Rijkenberg explained.
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The minister went on to explain that an additional E20 million had been provided in the supplementary budget that has not been released yet.
He emphasised that accusations that the E20 million subvention had been released were not true and not right.
“The Ministry of Health is in a process of concluding the MoU and the allocation will be released upon completion of the MoU,” he stated.
The minister went on to explain that there was also E10 million in the main appropriation budget provided and an additional E50 million that the House of Assembly had suggested to be added in the appropriation budget.
“The total now stands at E110 million but it is only E30 million that was released and has been used so far. Also, bear in mind that the ministry of finance is only a supporting ministry; the ministry of health is working directly with TLC in these matters,” he said.
Rijkenberg also assured that TLC would definitely be audited and a report would be shared with Senate.
He pointed out that the Ministry of Finance had already requested the Auditor General’s (AG) office to audit TLC. However, since the financial year 2024/25 has not yet ended the process could not be started.
“The audit for the E30 million support from government can only be started after March 31, 2025. The ministry will ensure that internal audit also initiates an audit on this support,” he added.
Since there remains no funding relationship between government and TLC, Senate submitted that a request must be submitted for a long term funding proposal detailing how much funding they would need and the timeframe or else have a MoU in place for subvention funding.
In response, Rijkenberg said; “This would be between the ministry of health and TLC to engage in discussions to determine how they can forge a way forward,
what can TLC offer and what the Ministry of Health needs from TLC thereafter to come up with a long term strategy.”
