Should we laugh or should we cry?
South African President Thabo Mbeki fired his deputy health minister (Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge).
Madlala-Routledge is best known for being the outspoken and fiercely independent deputy to South Africa's health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. She has reportedly taken a stronger line on the HIV/Aids pandemic than her minister.
Mbeki dismissed her following reports that she had gone to Spain to attend an AIDS conference without his permission. She travelled to Madrid with her son and a consultant at a cost of R160 000 to the taxpayer without seeking Mbeki's approval.
Madlala-Routledge's aides told a newspaper that there had been a mix up in dates and she had already arrived in Spain by the time she received word from the president she should not go.
AIDS activists have been highly critical of her boss, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who promoted garlic and lemons as a remedy for AIDS and mistrusted antiretroviral medicines.
Mbeki attracted flak some years ago for questioning the link between HIV and AIDS.
Tshabalala-Msimang was ill for nine months. Alcohol ADDICTION caused her liver failure.
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=537601
When Tshabalala-Msimang returned to work in June after a liver transplant, her first public gesture was to snub South Africa's national AIDS conference on the grounds that her deputy had been given a more prominent speaking role than her.
After a recent newspaper expose on an Eastern Cape hospital, Madlala-Routledge visited the hospital and declared conditions a "national emergency". She found that the appalling conditions described by a local newspaper report were in fact true and that mothers and babies were dying needlessly. Mbeki, however, backed the defence of conditions offered by his health minister.
Madlala-Routledge, who has been praised by civil society for her stance on the HIV/Aids pandemic, was recently elected to the central committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP). The SACP is in a tripartite alliance with the ANC and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Reports of infighting in the alliance have proliferated ahead of the scheduled election of the ANC's president in December.
South Africa's main AIDS lobby group, the "Treatment Action Campaign" (TAC) which forced the government to provide free antiretroviral treatment to sufferers, said Mbeki had made a huge mistake.
"This is a dreadful error of judgement that will harm public healthcare and especially the response to the HIV epidemic," the TAC said in a statement.
"It indicates that the president still remains opposed to the science of HIV and to appropriately responding to the epidemic," it said.
On the other side, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge approved the racist dismissal of white employees and contract workers at the Health Department. Furthermore she supported the dishonouring of legal & valid contracts awarded to European service providers on a racial basis.
South Africa's Mbeki sacks minister who questioned AIDS policy
http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=0708...
S. Africa Fires Official Praised for Anti-AIDS Work
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/world/africa/10safrica.html
Speech (audio) available here:
Madlala-Routledge ponders set-up theory
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=nw200...
Full media conference (video):
Madlala-Routledge 'nobody's handbag'
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=125&art_id=nw200...
THE MORAL OF THE STORY:
If Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge were an Aids denialist she would still have her job as Deputy Health Minister. But she is not and she has paid the price.
The ostensible reason for her dismissal cannot be shrugged off. We believe dirty tricks were involved in the leaking of an anonymous letter about her unauthorised trip to Spain. But that extravagant venture did show a lack of judgment on her part. Such insensitivity towards the use of taxpayers' money is bad enough.
She should also have realised she was exceptionally vulnerable, given her poor relationships with President Mbeki and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. The trip gave them ammunition to use against her.
It is no use looking for presidential consistency. Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka remains a darling despite a more scandalously wasteful outing to Dubai, while Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was sacked by her ex-husband for insubordination over an unauthorised flight to Angola.
No, Madlala-Routledge was targeted specifically because she openly acknowledged some of the failures of the Health Department. In interviews last year she admitted disagreeing with the government's policies on Aids. And this year she described conditions and baby deaths at Frere Hospital as "a national emergency". For that she was slapped down by Mbeki.
When Manto was on sick leave she was shown up by Madlala-Routledge. Activists and health workers were reinvigorated, believing that government had turned away from Aids denialism. Mbeki has dealt a huge blow to those hopes. Now the government's Aids policy will be under renewed scrutiny for signs of going backward.
With bumbling Dr Beetroot still in charge, we all know that it's the wrong one who was fired.
http://crimexposouthafrica.net/crimexp/index.php?option=com_content&task=...
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Fuck off
Greggybread 2 years ago 2
Ek het die naweek 'n baie slegte ondervinding gehad met 'n staats hospitaal 5uur in die oggend le al die personeel en slaap terwyl daar 15 +noodgevalle in die hospitaal sit en wag vir hulp ek het hulle op sellfoon afgeneem 'n motorongeluk geval het 4ure gewag vir hulp terwyl hulle le en slaap.
piet7701 2 years ago
My name is Brian Leonard -Golightly-Marshall. I am Christ, the AIDS virus was patented by the USA Google 4647773 naturally only Christ I can cure it. Google Brian Leonard Golightly Marshall I have opened an AIDS CURE centre in New Guinea hundreds are being cured. We must open centers in South Africa ASAP. 5 million victims I can cure 100% then maybe you will believe I am he the 5 million will.
MichelleNye 3 years ago
What is a STUOPID, do you mean stupid? or is that an african translation of the word. You don't know how to reason - fool. anc is anti white anti christ and anti west and mandels signed that arms deal. anc = Animals N Cannibals
mythbuster2001 3 years ago 2
you are stuopid, dont even want to reason with you, uncivilized racist idiots
sapride99 3 years ago
I remember a day when sa was truely brilliant now its a joke and only functional by african standards viva europe. sa is anti christ and sold nuclear secrets to iran - under mandela.
mythbuster2001 3 years ago 2
I do believe President Mbeki never knew the plot. He's a self-proclaimed Thatcherite and always intended to turn South Africa into a cheap-labour export haven for the international forces of Capitalism, which are robbing a disenfranchised and deceived SA public of its natural resources. He's succeeded: the failed policies of the IMF and World Bank has wrought havoc on South Africa's economy: a 22% decline in GDP per capita over the past 3 years.
wdednam 3 years ago
Its the brown toilet, not n color, but because the people shit all over the place
BoerBoetie 3 years ago
Its a substitute for the powers of reasoning.
Gnubnub 4 years ago
Yea, it's a suburb on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
Bobsbeentaken 4 years ago