Madlala-Routledge was set up

At 3.30pm on Tuesday, President Thabo Mbeki did what he has been trying to for a long time. He began the process of firing deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.

Summoned to the Union Buildings on Tuesday afternoon in Pretoria, Madlala-Routledge was asked to resign.

Madlala-Routledge did not agree to resign and told the president she needed to consult. She left and later that night sent him a letter saying that she would not resign. The letter was faxed from Luthuli House, the ANC headquarters.

On Wednesday night, Mbeki issued a terse statement. It read: ‘The presidency wishes to inform the nation that acting in terms of the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki has, today, relieved the Deputy Minister of Health, Ms Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, of her duties with effect from today.”

While the presidential spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga told the South African Press Association that the president did not have to supply reasons for dismissing the deputy, Mbeki relied on two incidents.

The first was the Frere hospital saga during which Madlala-Routledge described its stillborn births rate as a national emergency. Later, a health department task team found that the level of neonatal infant mortality was in line with the national average. The president issued an unprecedented broadside against her.

In addition, he also said that an aborted trip to a conference in Spain had been unauthorised and that the deputy minister had gone there after he turned down permission for the trip.

Madlala-Routledge has received a presidential tongue-lashing before. After she took a public Aids test and said she believed other politicians should follow suit, The Sunday Telegraph interpreted this as her challenge to Mbeki also to be tested. She was called to his office then and hauled over the coals.

Madlala-Routledge’s letter requesting permission to attend and speak at a conference of the International Aids Vaccine Initiative in Spain shows that the presidency thought that it would be a routine approval. The letter is stamped ‘approved” and is ready for signature, presumably the rote pattern for most ministerial travel. On June 11, the day of the former deputy minister’s departure, Mbeki crossed out the stamp and wrote ‘Not approved. TM. 11/06/2007” on the letter.

By that time, Madlala-Routledge was flying. When she arrived in Madrid the next morning, she heard that the trip had not been approved; she, her adviser and her son got on the next flight to London and then flew home.

While media reports suggested that she had illegally taken her son along with her, the ministerial handbook says that politicians may travel with their spouse or an adult family member.

Madlala-Routledge has said that she should not have left the country without the letter of approval in her hands, but opposition parties and civil society are of the firm opinion that she was set up.

Others have done far worse

President Thabo Mbeki does not have to give reasons for firing his ministers, according to spokesperson Mukoni Ratitshanga, write Adriaan Basson and

Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya. Presumably neither does he have to let the rest of the public in when wearing his ANC hat and getting rid of party officials.

For if he was bound to explain himself, he would have to say why a senior minister such as Mosoiua Lekota continues to serve in his Cabinet when he failed to declare his directorship of a winery and shares he had in a petroleum distribution company. For his omission, he was found guilty of contravening the Code of Conduct for MPs, given a written reprimand by the Parliamentary Ethics Committee and fined seven days’ pay.

Lekota then investigated why defence force officials spent R4- to R5-million to charter a plane to fly Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka to Britain for an official visit.

This was after Mlambo-Ngcuka and her family had flown to the United Arab Emirates for a five-day holiday at the end of December in the SA Air Force Falcon 900 jet reserved for VIPs.

Then there’s Linda Mti, the former commissioner of correctional services, whose business links with companies that generously benefited from his department were exposed last year.

Mti, a senior member of the ANC and former leader of the party in the Eastern Cape, was not even questioned by Mbeki, who has the power to hire and fire directors general.

Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi has admitted to being friends with Glen Agliotti, a man who freely admits to being part of the murder of Brett Kebble and other dubious characters, yet Mbeki has seen fit to have him lead the police.

Last month, it emerged that Deputy Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba had spent

taxpayers’ money on personal expenses such as flowers for his wife and his mother-in-law.

Criticism

Since the news of her firing on Wednesday night went public, many voices, including the ANC Women’s League in the Northern Cape, Cosatu, the SACP, the Treatment Action Campaign, Independent Democrat leader Patricia de Lillie, the DA and private individuals have come out supporting her, querying the motives for her dismissal, write Rapule Tabane and Zukile Majova.

The ANC Women’s League in the Northern Cape also criticised Mbeki for firing her on the eve of Women’s Day.

After Madlala-Routledge refused a request from Mbeki for her to resign, Mbeki announced her firing on Wednesday night through a statement.

This followed a leak from the presidency in the City Press that she had travelled to Spain in defiance of Mbeki, who had denied her permission to travel to a conference on HIV vaccines in Spain.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi concluded that Madlala-Routledge was fired for her outspoken views on the HIV/Aids issue.

‘In the absence of any other convincing explanation, we then conclude that she was fired because of her views on HIV/Aids, which were not shared by the president and Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. It is very sad because this means the sheep mentality of following the leader will persist. It will deepen the culture of sycophancy among government ministers and officials.

‘But all we can do is pay tribute to her. Thanks to her, government now has a five-year comprehensive HIV/Aids plan. Thanks to her there is unity between government and civil society and it is also thanks to her that we no longer have the mixed messages, and the spirit of Aids denialism is behind us,” said Vavi.

The TAC is also convinced that the trip to Spain was refused in order to discredit her and that it was part of an orchestrated campaign to fire her.

The TAC’s Mark Heywood said: ‘We think Mbeki does not tolerate it when Cabinet ministers speak out publicly about government inefficiency.”

Heywood said: ‘Maybe the problem was putting two people who are on diametrically opposite sides to one another in one ministry, because one reflects very badly on the other.

‘And for political reasons, the president has decided which minister to sack.”

But, a director in the health department said the deputy minister deserved to be fired.

‘This has been a classic case of a breach of protocol from someone who consistently had no respect for government protocol.

‘There is nothing sinister about the decision of the presidency because these circumstances are similar to the circumstances that led to Winnie Mandela being dismissed from Cabinet.”

The source also denied that Madlala-Routledge embarked on the Spain trip as a result of a misunderstanding. ‘She sent a letter requesting to leave on June 12, but she left on June 11.

‘By the time the application was disapproved, she was already in Spain. So this miscommunication story doing the rounds in the media is nonsense.”

The South African Communist Party criticised the official stance that Mbeki did not have to justify his firing of Madlala-Routledge, saying it ignored deliberations from the recent ANC policy conference, which agreed on a review of ‘presidential prerogative”.

Timeline

The beginning, 2004: Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge is appointed deputy minister of health, following her stint as deputy minister of defence.

December 2006: Mbeki’s Aids test. Following an interview with British newspaper the Sunday Telegraph, there were reports that she had called on President Thabo Mbeki to take an Aids test. She wins praise for her call from Cosatu, the TAC and other Aids activists, but in a later statement she says: ‘Although I encourage people to test so that they know their HIV status, I did not, as a matter of fact, call upon the president to conduct a public test as claimed by the reports.”

February 2007: Manto Tshabalala-Msimang falls ill and is admitted to hospital for a liver transplant. Mbeki announces that Transport Minister Jeff Radebe will fill her position. Many see this as a slap in the face for Madlala-Routledge.

June 2007: Manto ”snubbed”. After a speedy recovery, Tshabalala-Msimang takes up her post again, but there is immediate controversy. Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said Tshabalala-Msimang withdrew from the third South African Aids Conference because Madlala-Routledge was given a more prominent position at the conference.

July 2007: Mount Frere Hospital. A public row erupts between Tshabalala-Msimang and Madlala-Routledge over conditions at the Mount Frere Hospital in the Eastern Cape. Madlala-Routledge describes conditions at the hospital as a national emergency during a surprise visit following media reports of a dire shortage of equipment and staff, and management’s inaction on infant deaths. A few days later, Tshabalala-Msimang visits the hospital and says her deputy’s comments were based on untruths.

August 5 2007: Unauthorised trip. It is leaked to the media that Madlala-Routledge takes a consultant and her son on a trip to Spain without obtaining presidential approval, at a total cost of R160 000. Madlala-Routledge denies any wrongdoing.

August 7: Fired. Mbeki asks her to resign on Tuesday, but she refuses. She is sacked a day later.