A crowd of Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) activists marched to Parliament on Thursday as part of a national demonstration calling for the government to pay the TAC’s costs in recent litigation.
The spirited protesters toyi-toyied and chanted their way down several blocks in the city centre, bringing lunchtime traffic to a standstill.
The protesters held aloft placards, reading “Treatment timetable plan now” and “HIV does not discriminate, why do we?”.
In a memorandum — expected to be accepted by the chairperson of Parliament’s portfolio committee on health, James Ngculu — the TAC said if Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had displayed a “modicum of conscientiousness”, she would have told the TAC the true status of annexure A much earlier.
Annexure A is the timetable referred to in the government’s national anti-retroviral plan. The TAC wanted access to the annexure, and eventually went to the courts to gain access to it.
However, subsequently, acting Director General of Health Kamy Chetty said on oath that all references to annexure A in the plan had been made in error.
“We have wasted our time and money in bringing this case to court. Because of the delinquent and reprehensible behaviour of the minister, we are asking the High Court to hold her to account by making her pay our wasted legal costs,” reads the memorandum.
The TAC called on Tshabalala-Msimang to make the implementation plan available immediately, and said if the plan does not exist, it wants a reason for its non-existence.
“Cabinet should also ask the minister why she has not made the implementation plan timetable publicly available as late as one year after it adopted the operational plan.” — Sapa
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