The Ministry of Health has slammed Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon’s Women’s Day speech in which he said that the ministers of health and foreign affairs were ”letting women down”.
”Leon is the last person to speak on racial and gender transformation in this country. He has not made any effort to transform his white-dominated organisation to reflect the demographics of our country,” said the ministry in a statement on Thursday.
Eight top DA posts were occupied by white men only. All nine provincial DA leaders were white, it said.
In Leon’s speech in Paarl, in the Western Cape, he accused Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang of letting women down through her deeds rather than her silence.
He also criticised Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s ”notable silence” on the plight of women in Sudan’s Darfur region, Zimbabwe and Swaziland.
Leon said individuals should be given jobs based on merit, not on gender or race.
The ministry said all DA campaigns against it over the past seven years had failed dismally, causing the party to change its spokesperson on health at least five times.
”The DA has opposed every effort by the Ministry of Health to transform the health sector and improve access and quality of health care for the benefit of the majority of people in South Africa.
”[It] has campaigned against government efforts to improve access to affordable medicines through the implementation of the Medicines Act … which the party unsuccessfully opposed in Parliament,” said the ministry. — Sapa