The government through the Health Services Board (HSB) said that it has unfrozen 1 762 posts in the health sector. This was revealed by the HSB executive chairperson Paulinus Sikhosana. Sikhosana had this to say:
There are 1 762 posts and this is for all health workers across the board. They cover government institutions, rural district councils, obviously HSB, all health workers — doctors, nurses, lab scientists, environmental health officers — all those posts that had been frozen.
Treasury has agreed to release about $12 499 040 million. The unfreezing did not happen yesterday, it has been a continual process.
So in the discussions with Treasury, we had requested for the unfreezing of posts for up to $10 million but with our consultations with the Health and Child Care ministry, we estimated it to be around $12.5 million.
The Finance and Development ministry agreed they will provide those resources and we have had a number of meetings with Treasury, and the ministry has prioritised these and these are the positions that have been prioritised (pointing at the posts printed on several papers).