Cape Town – Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla says government has no intention to make vaccinations mandatory for all South Africans.
However, they were encouraging people to get vaccinated to prevent the spread of the virus.
The government has recently launched the Vooma campaign that seeks to encourage people to get vaccinated.
Some companies have already said it will be mandatory for all their employees to get the jabs.
Phaahla, who was replying to a written question from IFP MP Magdalene Hlengwa, said it was not their intention as government to make vaccinations mandatory.
“No, government does not intend to make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory by law. The government approach is to invest in persuading people in seeing the life-saving value of vaccination. As stated above, government wants to emphasise on rather convincing people of the value of vaccination,” said Phaahla.
“While the state has no intention to make vaccination mandatory, we also have no intention to interfere in internal policies of private and independent institutions, including on the public health policies.” he said.
This comes after the announcement by some of the companies that it will be mandatory for their employees to be vaccinated.
Phaahla also said earlier that they were almost halfway in vaccinating 70% of the people by the end of the year.
He said so far 33/4% of the people have received jabs.
The launch of the Vooma campaign will ramp up the vaccination programme as they intend to vaccinate 200 000 a day.
IOL