The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has launched a web based campaign calling for the firing of South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
The campaign was launched by DA Member of Parliament Mike Waters at Parliament on Tuesday and journalists were handed stickers carrying the website name www.firemanto.co.za
Waters said history would record that the minister’s approach to HIV/Aids ”as the most comprehensive failure that has defined this government”.
On the website is a dossier arguing ”the case against Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang — the authoritative compilation of the minister’s failures”.
Asked if the campaign should not be directed against President Thabo Mbeki, Waters said no, the minister had been the responsible minister of health for 1 471 days and it was she who should be fired.
He argued that under the minister’s leadership South Africa’s health policy had became synonymous with the controversial theories of a small minority of discredited Aids dissidents.
”This dangerous position culminated in the July 5, 2002, constitutional court ruling which found that minister, along with seven health MECs, were in violation of their constitution and the health care rights of HIV positive women and their babies.”
Delivering the judgement Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson stated ”The (ANC government) policy of restricting the supply of nevirapine infringes the right
of HIV positive mothers and their babies to the health care guaranteed by the constitution.”
Waters said to this day the minister had ”yet to act on the court order or to apologise for the damage she has done”.
The court ordered that the government should rollout the anti-retroviral nevirapine. He added that the campaign would be taken to ”grassroots” in other campaign message forms, noting that the internet campaign was just the start of the initiative. – I-Net Bridge