On behalf of the Democratic Alliance I will be tabling a motion before the Provincial Legislature today (subs: Tues, 25 Sept) to get all mobile clinics throughout the province licensed.

I have also written to the MEC for Transport Thandiswa Marawu asking her how many unlicensed mobile clinics there are in the province and by when these clinics will be licensed and operational.

Furthermore, I will be asking for a full report on this matter to be tabled at the Portfolio Committee of Transport.

As this problem has occurred in the past years it is imperative that an immediate workable strategy is in place to prevent possible future licensing debacles.

There are several regions within the province that have unlicensed mobile clinics standing idle.

In Cacadu all 17 mobile clinics cannot be legally driven to communities.

In Camdeboo and Blue Crane municipalities there are three vehicles each that do not have licences.

In the Amathole District I am further informed that mobile clinics, while operational, are also standing idle due to the non-licensing of these vehicles.

There are other areas throughout the province where collective or isolated clinic vehicles are standing idle due to not being licensed.

Recently the DA highlighted the problem of mobile clinics in the Nelson Mandela Metro also not being licensed.

This is a criminal state of affairs and heads must roll in this fiasco.

I will be asking the MECs for Health and Transport what caused this problem and what disciplinary action will be taken against the officials involved.

Once again communities suffer basic service delivery of a mobile clinic due to ineptitude of the officials involved.

It is humanely cruel for anyone to have to suffer discomfort or pain or illness because some lax officials have not been able to license mobile clinics that can serve these sick people.

It is unacceptable that a basic human need such as medical care is denied to thousands of inhabitants in this province because they can’t access a mobile clinic in their area.