Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s blocking of a R720-million grant to fight Aids in KwaZulu-Natal is causing major ructions between the government, on one hand, and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the province and international donor agencies, on the other.
Mark Heywood, director of the Aids Law Project, interviewed at the 14th International Aids Conference in Barcelona, said that “the R720-million grant for the Enhancing Care Initiative of KwaZulu-Natal was part of a well-thought-out proposal for prevention, care and treatment”.
“The Ministry of Health, and the minister of health in particular, is trying to block that grant. It is urgent that this situation be resolved quickly.”
In a tense stand-off with UNAids director Peter Piot last Sunday, Tshabalala-Msimang reportedly said that South Africa was capable of managing and funding its own Aids programmes, “without outside interference”.
Earlier that day a journalist had recorded her saying that nevirapine was poisoning “my people”.
Tshabalala-Msimang has not blocked similar grants to loveLife for R68-million and to Soul City for R28-million from the Global Fund, but they lacked any provision for treatment and care.
The government’s own application for money from the fund was turned down, but it was invited to resubmit an application for the second round of funding in September.
The TAC said it might bring an urgent legal action against the government if it did not agree to the funds for KwaZulu-Natal within the required period, which ends in two weeks.
The grant would fund prevention, care and treatment for more than four million people in the province hardest hit by Aids in one of the most extensive and dramatic programmes in the world.
The programme has aroused intense international interest and approval.
In a powerful speech in Barcelona yesterday, Graça Machel, wife of former president Nelson Mandela, said that “governments must design and implement strategies that are as comprehensive as the virus itself. We must have prevention, and a continuum of care and treatment within one paradigm.”
But South Africa, which managed to become the focus of controversy two years ago at the conference in Durban, is again the object of intense criticism.
In March governments around the world submitted applications to the Global Fund for funding to combat Aids. In April, the UN announced successful candidates.
Earlier this week Piot said that governments that blocked funding for care and treatment projects may in future have to be bypassed, with funding going to civil society instead, “as happened under apartheid”./
} How to elect officials, the ANC way
` Jaspreet Kindra
^ If an African National Congress member is acceptable to the media, speaks English eloquently and is sophisticated, don’t elect him or her as a leader. This is what an ANC guide is telling its provincial structures ahead of its national conference in December.
The party is to elect its national office bearers at the conference to be held in Stellenbosch, while leaders at the branch level are still being elected in at least four provinces.
An ANC national working committee discussion document, Through the Eye of a Needle: Choosing the Best Cadres to Lead Transformation, which is being circulated within the party structures in provinces, says: “Influenced by a culture alien to the ANC, a tendency has also developed to assess individuals totally outside of the political context which is the core mandate of the ANC.”
The document thus urges members to stay away from “artificial criteria such as acceptability to the media, eloquence specifically in English, and warped notions of ‘sophistication'”, which, the document adds, “are then imposed on the movement’s approach”.
The document also lashes out at “so-called analysts” for creating “false categories” such as “left”, “right”, “pro-this and anti-the-other”, “insider” and “outsider”. These categories are then accepted by some of the party members, says the document.
“This is usually whispered outside formal structures and bandied about opportunistically in the build-up to the organisation’s conferences.”
The national working committee document also frowns upon “populism”, which it says is “born” when individuals exploit “weaknesses” such as the slowness of social transformation “by creating an impression that they could do what the ANC leadership as a whole is unable to do”.
The document is critical of those who “seek to court popularity by demonstrating ‘independence’ from constitutional structures and senior leaders of the ANC, for its own sake”. This tendency towards independence is encouraged by the media, and “other forces opposed to the ANC, precisely because it means independence from the mission and discipline of the movement”.
There is a note of warning to avoid “individuals who operate in the dead of the night, convening secret meetings and speaking poorly of other members”. They should be “exposed and isolated”, the document urges.
When approached to be part of such conspiratorial groups, “members should relay such information to relevant structures or individuals in whom they have confidence”.
However, the document says, it is critical that proper investigations are conducted and those accused are informed of the fact: “Witch-hunts should be avoided as a matter of principle.”
The paper also notes the “tendency for discussions around leadership nominations to be reduced to mechanical deal-making among branches, regions and provinces.” Instead of having “thorough and honest discussions about the qualities of nominees, delegates negotiate merely on the basis of ‘if you take ours, we’ll take yours’.” While this may ensure provincial and regional balances, when “taken to extremes it can result in federalism by stealth within the movement”.
While the document frowns upon “quiet and secret lobbying, which opens the movement to opportunism and even infiltration by forces hostile to the ANC’s objectives”, it does not approve of individuals who canvass support for themselves.
“Historically, this has justifiably been frowned upon as being in bad revolutionary taste,” says the document.