Govt screws tighten on Madlala-Routledge's finances
Mail & Guardian Online reporter and Sapa | Johannesburg, South Africa
26 August 2007 09:39A government assault on the finances of axed deputy minister of health Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge has left her broke, the Sunday Times reported.
She has been forced to accept money from her elderly mother after her salary was docked to reclaim the cost of her controversial trip to Spain.
Now, as the screws are being tightened on her finances, Madlala-Routledge on Friday received a third letter of demand, this time from the Department of Public Works.
The South African government, or more precisely Thabo Mbeki, are so painfully predicable and petty. For those of you who have been following this story on this blog will no doubt remember when this story first broke here and I said:
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.
- South Africa: Sacked deputy health minister tells her side of the story
This is the petty retribution of Mbeki against Madlala-Routledge for not towing the line, his line. Namely that nothing is wrong with South Africa's health care system and every thing is fine.
This is despite such reports that South Africa has an alarming number of baby deaths, such as at Frere Hospital in Eastern Cape, and has had, and in many ways continues to have, a stupid pigheaded approach to HIV/AIDS which is almost entirely the fault of... you guessed it, Thabo Mbeki and his incompetent minister of health Tshabalala- Msimang.
Now the question is what will the parties involved do next? This action has no doubt made Madlala-Routledge a hero amongst those people, inside and out side of the ruling ANC, and it will most likely force her into their, very diverse, political camp. Mbeki will continue to persecute Madlala-Routledge and keep Tshabalala-Misimang as minister of health. He will only fire Misimang when he absolutely has to and every one thinks that he is an idiot for not doing it sooner.
The sad truth is about Mbeki's cabinet is that the only way a minister ever leaves a cabinet position is if 1) they die, 2) they quit or 3) they aren't unquestioningly loyal to Mbeki. No matter how incompetent a minister or deputy minister may be and the country suffers for it, so long as they are loyal to Mbeki, they will keep their job.
A time line of the Madlala-Routledge controversy...
Refrences:
Mail & Guardian: Govt screws tighten on Madlala-Routledge's finances
Mail & Guardian: Madlala-Routledge was set up
Political Vuvuzela: South Africa: Sacked deputy health minister tells her side of the story
AllAfrica.com: South Africa: DA in Support of Cosatu On Frere Hospital Scandal
