Aids activists and health care workers slammed the South African National Aids Council (Sanac) for excluding them from a restructuring workshop.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma is Sanac’s chairperson, but his office could not confirm that the work-shop is taking place. Sources say the meeting has been set down for October 5 and 6. Sanac decided in February to hold this workshop, but it has been constantly postponed, say health workers.
Sanac appointed a technical task team to represent the Aids activists, health workers and scientists. But members of the team confirmed that they have not been invited to the meeting. They don’t understand how Sanac can be restructured without those who have called for the action.
Sanac is the body responsible for the approval and distribution of all foreign funding for Aids, inclu- ding the controversial R720-million grant that the Global Fund for HIV and Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria allocated to KwaZulu-Natal.
The council was formed in February 2000 to combine government and civil society efforts in fighting the Aids epidemic, but it was heavily criticised at the HIV/Aids Summit in Durban this June for ineffectiveness and excluding representatives of civil society.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions called for Sanac to be restructured because it excluded Aids activists and scientists.
The task team was appointed to provide expertise to Sanac, but sources say it has been sidelined by the Presidential Advisory Council established in 2000 in response to questions relating to the cause and treatment of HIV/Aids.
Aids workers say friction between Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, with her unorthodox views on Aids treatment, and Zuma, who supports the mainstream science, is one reason Sanac has not been able to function effectively.
”This council that has been awarded powers to ensure that people with HIV have access to treatment has taken no action towards fulfilling its mandate,” says Pholokgolo Ramathwala, spokesperson for the TAC in Gauteng.
He says there is widespread confusion about what is going on at Sanac.
”If we, the people who represent those living with HIV, are exclu- ded [from the workshop] then this means Sanac will be reviewing itself.”
He says that many provincial representatives are frustrated by the delays and lack of communication from top level. ”The workshop will be redundant if our views are not heard.”
Sources close to the government say the Global Fund has been inundated with phone calls from South African Aids NGOs trying to determine the procedures to follow when applying for grants. Sanac was meant to clarify the procedure.
The University of Natal, which applied for the KwaZulu-Natal grant, slammed any suggestion that it flouted Sanac’s procedures.
”The university is maintaining open dialogue with the national Department of Health to avert the catastrophe of losing these funds in the face of dire need. Efforts to develop a similar dialogue with Sanac have not been successful as it is unclear who in Sanac is dealing with the Global Fund applications,” says David Maughan Brown, acting vice-chancellor of the University of Natal.
Sources say that chairs of the task team’s groups have approved a draft proposal to be handed to the restructuring workshop that calls on Sanac to be more transparent. The proposal says the Cabinet and the President’s Office should take the restructuring of Sanac seriously and allow it to perform its mandate.
It also calls on Sanac to be a functional body with appropriate management structures and clearly defined terms of reference. It recommends that Sanac fulfil its mandate to increase national, provincial and community cooperation and be accountable. It also proposes that the role of the technical task team needs to be re-evaluated and get support from the government and the Department of Health.
Zuma was out of the country and was unavailable for comment.