GEMS' Greed Exposed:
23% in Two Years – Pure Class Robbery!
NATU Vows “No More Feeding the Beast While Our Families Starve!”
The recent Memorandum of Demands delivered to the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) on 21 February 2026 represents a resolute and unyielding stand by organised labour — led by unions under FEDUSA — against what can only be described as a sustained assault on the livelihoods of South Africa’s public servants.
As NATU, a union steadfastly committed to the rights and dignity of educators and all public service workers, we view this moment not as a mere negotiation tactic, but as a necessary confrontation with a scheme that has drifted dangerously far from its original purpose. GEMS was born out of PSCBC Resolution 1 of 2006 as a social solidarity instrument—a non-commercial, member-centered vehicle designed to provide affordable, equitable healthcare access, particularly to lower- and middle-income public servants who form the backbone of our essential services.
Yet today, GEMS operates in a manner that increasingly resembles a profit-protecting entity rather than a worker-supporting one. The latest contribution adjustments—initially a 9.8% hike effective January 2026, revised downward to 9.5% from 1 February — follow a punishing 13.4% increase in 2025. This delivers a cumulative blow of over 23% in just two years. Meanwhile, public servants grappled with a mere 5.5% salary adjustment in 2025/26, face projected increases well below inflation for 2026/27, and contend with inflation hovering around 3.6%. The Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) explicitly recommended limiting contribution increases to 3.3% for 2026 (plus reasonable utilisation estimates) to alleviate member strain and prevent dropout from medical coverage—guidance that GEMS flagrantly disregarded, imposing hikes more than double the advised level and nearly three times inflation.
This is not sustainability; it is systemic extraction. Public servants are witnessing:
- Severe erosion of real take-home pay, forcing impossible trade-offs between healthcare, school fees, food, transport, energy bills, and household debt repayment.
- Mass downgrading of benefits or outright exclusion from private care, particularly under low-cost options like Tanzanite One.
- Unilateral, regressive changes that betray the scheme’s founding ethos, pushing vulnerable members toward overburdened public hospitals when they most need specialised intervention.
NATU fully endorses and amplifies every demand in the memorandum, which strikes at the root causes rather than merely treating symptoms:
- Immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the 9.5% (and any residual elements of the 9.8%) contribution increase, replaced by a member-affordable structure developed through genuine, good-faith consultation with organised labour in the PSCBC framework.
- Complete financial transparency—full disclosure of operational budgets, line-by-line administrative spending, all managed care and outsourcing contracts (including costs and performance metrics), executive and Board remuneration (including bonuses and perks), and procurement details. Members pay for this scheme; members own the right to scrutinise every rand.
- Independent forensic audit—conducted by a mutually agreed, truly impartial body—of governance practices, procurement integrity, administrative and outsourcing expenditures, fraud/leakage controls, and executive accountability mechanisms. Findings must be public, with no redactions shielding those responsible.
- Radical review and reduction of outsourcing/administrative bloat—a rigorous, independent cost-benefit analysis of every outsourced function, with binding timelines to slash excessive overheads and redirect savings directly to enhanced healthcare benefits. Contributions must fund care, not corporate bureaucracy.
- Fundamental overhaul of the funding and reserve model—including scrutiny of the 25% statutory reserve ratio, the role of aggressive reserve accumulation in driving hikes, and viable alternatives (such as phased draw-downs or structural reforms) to stabilise contributions without punishing members.
- Governance transformation—enforced consequence management for failures, meaningful and empowered labour representation on governance structures, and executive/Board remuneration capped and aligned with public service norms and principles of austerity.
- Institutionalised, binding structured engagement—formal PSCBC-based processes with fixed timelines, documented responses to union submissions, and veto-level consultation on all future contribution adjustments and major benefit changes.
- Full reversal of unilateral Tanzanite One mutilations—restore the original low-cost design with comprehensive hospital cover, scrap the outrageous >100% contribution spikes for certain salary brackets, eliminate down-payments for hospitalisation (which effectively deny access to private facilities), and grant affected members a fresh, penalty-free opportunity to reselect options.
- Removal of Principal Officer Dr Stanley Moloabi and the current executive team—they advised, endorsed, and executed decisions that have inflicted disproportionate harm on members while failing to curb cost drivers or honour the scheme’s social mandate. Leadership failure demands decisive accountability; the Board must act swiftly to restore member trust.
The memorandum’s seven-working-day deadline for a substantive written response is non-negotiable. Silence, deflection, or superficial platitudes about “dialogue” and “sustainability” (as seen in GEMS’ initial media release) will trigger immediate escalation: intensified mass mobilisation, coordinated protests (already underway nationwide), targeted industrial action, and pursuit of every available institutional and legal avenue.
Public servants are not passive contributors; we are the lifeblood of GEMS. We built it, we fund it through mandatory deductions, and we demand it serve us—not executives, not bloated contracts, not opaque reserves. Affordable, accessible healthcare is a hard-won right, not a concession to be eroded by mismanagement or disregard for regulatory guidance.
NATU stands shoulder-to-shoulder with our sister unions in unbreakable unity. We will not be placated. We will not retreat. We will fight until GEMS is reclaimed as the social solidarity scheme it was always meant to be—affordable, transparent, accountable, and unequivocally worker-centred.
Public servants built this scheme. Public servants will defend it. And public servants will win.