The government denies it has ”ring-fenced” Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in an effort to limit her controversial pronouncements on HIV and Aids, and on treatment for victims of the disease.
Responding to a question during a post-Cabinet-meeting media briefing at Parliament, Government Communications and Information Service head Joel Netshitenzhe said a report in Business Day on Thursday morning to this effect was ”unethical”.
Asked at the briefing, ”Can you comment on reports that the minister of health has been ‘ring-fenced’ from the media?”, Netshitenzhe replied: ”There is no such thing.”
According to the newspaper, the government has ”thrown a ring” around Tshabalala-Msimang to improve the state’s controversial management of its Aids message.
The ”ring” is in the form of an interdepartmental communications committee, briefed to manage the government’s handling of the Aids campaign.
The report quotes an unnamed source as saying: ”The committee is an attempt to rein Manto in.”
Tshabalala-Msimang has recently become the darling of local cartoonists with her controversial pronouncements on, among other things, the efficacy of foodstuffs such as garlic, African potatoes, beetroot and olive oil in the management of Aids.
Netshitenzhe told journalists the interdepartmental team on HIV and Aids referred to in the Business Day story ”has existed for more than three, four years”.
”In part, as we know, [the team has existed] because these issues impact on various government departments. So, I don’t know where the story comes from.
”Unfortunately there is sometimes, I think, an unethical reliance on hidden sources. And when they contact the department to clarify the issues, people still insist on writing stories on the basis of what they got from their sources.
”I think that’s the unfortunate thing sometimes in our journalism,” he said. — Sapa