Sacked deputy health minister has her say
Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was South Africa's deputy health minister - until Wednesday night that is. President Mbeki fired her after she allegedly failed to gain proper permission for a trip to Spain, and after she paid an unannounced visit to the troubled Frere Hospital in East London.
Today Nozizwe addressed the media and gave her side of the story, which has become an intensely contentious one. Why wait for 7pm tonight to see her response on the news - watch her full 15-minute address on MyVideo right now and judge for yourself whether or not her dismissal was fair.
-Michael Salzwedel
I am of the opinion that her dismissal was completely unfair and was done for purely political reasons; the main reason being that she deviated from South African president, Thabo Mbeki's, stupid and short sighted stance on how the department of health should be run. It is also apparent to me that she was sacked because she was concerned about the 'facts' based on truth as apposed to the factoids based on Mbeki's truthiness.
The truthiness in this case being the truth (or more accurately, non-truth) that Mbeki wants every one to believe is going on. No doubt Mbeki will now try to make the deputy minister a pariah and 'make an example' of her in some way. One of those ways could be to bring a court case against her for her trip overseas, which she talks about in the video clip.
The threatening of people who do not 'tow the president's line' is fare more common then people think it is. It is known that Rhoda Kadalie, for example, has received death threats when ever she writes anything damning or bad about certain ANC issues or people.
Video:
http://www.myvideo.co.za/video/madlala-routledge-responds
