OFFICIALS DUCK AND DIVE AFTER DEPUTY'S SPEECH

This is yesterday's post! Finally we get someone who tells it like it is and she gets fired! Bugger! They really did fire the wrong person.

Manto is still in power, and it is my opinion that she has brought, not only the government, but the whole of SA into dispute with the allegations of her excessive drinking and thieving! Yet she walks freely away from any messes that she makes.

I am beginning to wonder, what is the hold that she has on Mbeki that he cannot see what an embarrassment she is to all of us and to him in particular!

Officials duck and dive after deputy's speech
December 12 2006 at 04:43AM
By Angela Quintal and Vusumuzi Ka Nzapheza

Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge went to ground on Monday while the government sought for a way to limit the damage and deal with the embarrassment of a deputy reportedly criticising the highest office in the land, as well as her immediate boss. Madlala-Routledge, regarded as one of the faces of government's new approach to HIV and Aids, found on Monday that a candid weekend interview with a freelance journalist writing for the British Sunday Telegraph had landed her in hot water. She reportedly criticised both her superior, Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and President Thabo Mbeki himself - and said both should take some responsibility for the confusion on the proper way to treat HIV and Aids.


'Now I've not been gagged formally'

She also urged Mbeki, along with other leaders, to take a public HIV test and criticised his appointment of Professor Herbert Vilakazi as chairman of a task team on traditional medicine, given that the latter was marketing an untested product, Ubhejane, as a cure.

The last time a deputy minister criticised superiors, he was fired and later expelled from the African National Congress. That was in 1996. Bantu Holomisa, the former Transkei military dictator, had among other things accused Stella Sigcau, the then public enterprises minister, of having accepted a bribe when she was a Bantustan leader from hotel magnate Sol Kerzner. Later Holomisa went further and suggested that senior party leaders, including then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and Sports Minister Steve Tshwete, had accepted favours from Kerzner. Nelson Mandela dismissed him as deputy minister of environment affairs in July of that year and in August he was expelled from the ANC for bringing the party into disrepute.

'I must only say what she says and this is official'

On Monday, communications officials in the health ministry did not respond to calls, and Health director-general Thami Mseleku referred queries to government spokesperson Thabo Maseko. The presidency was also not available for comment at the time of going to press. Maseko said it was "extremely premature" to say whether any action would be taken against Madlala-Routledge. He said the deputy minister was in Cape Town and he was trying to reach her to clarify what was said in the interview. Only when this was done, would the government issue a statement.

Madlala-Routledge recently took a more high-profile role in communicating government's HIV and Aids policy, at a time when Tshabalala-Msimang took a back seat because of ill health and Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was tasked with revitalising government's image on the issue. This came after South Africa's disastrous PR drive at an international Aids conference in Toronto, which resulted in the Cabinet assessing the damage wrought by Tshabalala-Msimang's combative approach, which had also alienated key NGO and civil society organisations in the fight against the pandemic.Although Tshabalala-Msimang had in the past effectively gagged her deputy from speaking on HIV and Aids - a fact confirmed in the interview this week - Madlala-Routledge was regularly meeting the Treatment Action Campaign.

The TAC has credited the deputy as being "instrumental in mediating between us and government". TAC chairman Zackie Achmat on Monday said his organisation supported Madlala-Routledge's statements critical of the president and the minister. "This is indeed the first time a serving minister has come out loud and clear on the issues we have been raising in the last eight years and we hope others in the Cabinet will support her statements," Achmat said.

Achmat hoped Madlala-Routledge would not be censured or victimised for being outspoken. He said that since the TAC's nemesis, Tshabalala-Msimang had gone on sick leave and Madlala-Routledge took up the cudgels, the messages coming from government on Aids had been encouraging. "It is time we put away the conflict and confusion of the last eight years and we think the deputy minister represents that new beginning," he said. Madlala-Routledge is no Bantu Holomisa. While Holomisa is a general and fighter, Madlala-Routledge, a former deputy defence minister, is a Quaker and a pacifist. Holomisa was among the most popular ANC leaders elected to the party's NEC in 1994. Madlala-Routledge has never been elected to her party's top leadership structure. However, she joined the SACP in 1984 and once served in its central committee.

Unlike the charismatic Holomisa, Madlala-Routledge has had a low public profile since she entered government. She was appointed the defence deputy minister in 1999 and the deputy health minister in 2004. But like Holomisa, Madlala-Routledge, 54, has become increasingly outspoken, particularly on HIV and Aids. Two weeks ago she also took on the male-orientated military justice system, and raised concerns about the irregular promotion of one of the country's top general, Mxolisi Petane, who faces a sexual harassment charge.Madlala-Routledge is a tireless champion of women's rights and was the co-author of South Africa's 1995 report for the 4th World conference on Women in Beijing.

She has long supported the rollout of anti-retrovirals and was concerned about the mixed messages being sent by government of the treatment of the disease, leading to a widening rift with her boss. In August it was reported that the pair did not see eye to eye, and that Tshabalala-Msimang had effectively gagged her deputy from speaking on HIV and Aids. Last weekend, Madlala-Routledge confirmed this had been the case. "Now I've not been gagged formally. It's not like there's a letter telling me not to talk about HIV/Aids but I've been sanctioned because I've spoken in parliament and told I may lose my job."I must only say what she says and this is official. For me that is gagging but I've not observed the gag. I've just said what I think ought to be said and nobody has told me to shut up."

Has the mother of two sons now gone too far? Some believe she has, and that Madlala-Routledge's criticism of the health minister and the president has "brought the government into disrepute". In an interview with health-e in November, Madlala-Routledge credited her mother, a former school principal, for the values she says she lives by: honesty, truth, integrity, commitment and courage. Her latest interview at the weekend was described as "brave" and "courageous" by those who know her. Ironically, it might well be the deputy minister who will lose her job, despite the fact that in the eyes of the public and government's detractors, it should be her minister who should go.Whether the president will want to elevate his deputy to the stature of martyr, while he and some of his Cabinet are still branded denialists, remains to be seen.

This article was originally published on page 3 of Pretoria News on December 12, 2006