Pretoria - In its last meeting for the year, Cabinet on Thursday approved several developments which will play a big role in improving South Africa's health and education landscape.
Cabinet has given the green light for the establishment of a body to regulate health products for humans and animals. The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) will regulate medicines and medical devices, as well as products like foodstuffs and cosmetics with some medical components in them.
This new regulatory authority will replace the current Medicines Control Council.
Cabinet spokesperson Jimmy Manyi said on Thursday that the regulation of health products was an integral part of the country's health system.
"The implementation of SAHPRA ... needs to be expedited to ensure that it is firmly in place and functioning efficiently to support the National Health Insurance system," said Manyi.
On the education front, Cabinet approved the publication of the Green Paper on Higher Education and Training for public comment and consultation.
The Green Paper maps the vision for the post-school Education and Training system, which seeks to make education accessible to all.
"This requires the redress of past and present injustices and continuing disadvantage among people, including overcoming injustices and barriers to progress on the basis of social class, race and gender," said Manyi.
Other approvals made by Cabinet include the proposed amendments to the Broad-Based Black Economic empowerment Act, which will be issued for public comment. The Bill proposes, among others, penalty provision for non-compliance, broadening of ownership to include designated groups such as employee share ownership and skills development element alignment to the New Growth Path.
