What a boring couple of weeks we’ve had in the Republic of Circus, also known as South Africa. I’m sure you were wondering where the commentary on these happenings is. Well, here it is:
My thought is that anyone who disobeys orders in a work environment, time and time again, deserves to be shafted. There is no way I could tolerate working with someone who does not listen to his / her colleagues, regardless of their position, goes off and does their own thing at will, and is seen not to be “one of us”. This is more so if that person has been given warnings over and over again. Therefore for the President to fire the former Deputy Health Minister in the manner that he did is totally normal and acceptable, even in corporate SA. We cannot sit in a boardroom meeting and decide on issues, then one of us goes off and says the opposite to the public. What kind of message would our organisation be sending out there? The only other thing though, is that although the executive cabinet is appointed by the President, my imagination says Deputies should answer to their Ministers, and not to the President directly? That you have to ask the President of the country, a very busy man who sleeps only 3 hours a day, to sign your form for an official overseas trip seems a bit trivial. We have over 40 Ministers and their Deputies. Do they all have to ask for permission each time they go to work? I don’t know how these things work, but it all sounds like primary-school to me.
So then why so much noise about the sacking? Two reasons really: first, the President has not had awesome press ever since the HIV/AIDS thing broke out a few years ago. The minister of health has also not had good press at all, and she would have, had she deviated from the policies set by Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma when she was head of the country’s health system under Dr Nelson Mandela. Mandela himself in fact, should have done much more to curb the scourge of AIDS as he was in charge when the epidemic went from bad to worse. One of the reasons the old man did not do much during his tenure is that he was already looking out the door into pensionhood, meaning the incumbent Thabo Mbeki was already taking over the resigns even as the old man was still in executive power. Fact is, Mbeki has been President of SA for the past 10 years or so, with two more years to go. So fortunately the AIDS and ARV problem did not land with a beetroot salad from Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (forgive me, I couldn’t resist). However, she did and still does have a little power to help the situation, rather than perpetuate it. That she and the President are not seen, I repeat, not seen, to be helping is the first reason people got mad at the sacking of Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.
Secondly, the President’s firing of Mr Jacob Zuma from cabinet is still one of society’s most divisive and most topical issues, particularly as regards to the manner in which JZs files have been “handled” by the chief. Thus when this whole Madlala-Routledge saga happened, people got flashbacks of the Zuma affair and began to see the President in an even darker light than they had before. Funny that, because, even though Mandela was seen as the savior, he was never taken seriously as a working President, that is, one that is in office grafting like a worker bee, making sure things are getting done. Mbeki we saw as this worker bee, which is why when he officially took over the country applauded in unison, saying “now we’ll get to work, the honeymoon is over”.
Alas, the work did not happen fast enough in people’s eyes. Instead we got scandal after scandal, – high crime; corruption in government; email hoax sagas; the JZ affair; the slapping of Winnie Mandela at the stadium; Khutsong; HIV/AIDS; Bulelani Ngcuka and the Scorpions; the banning of political commentators from SABC; the Deputy President’s R700 000 flight to Dubai; the President’s third term utterances; our “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; the Selebi-Agliotti fume – and the list goes on.
Last Friday in the President’s weekly online essay http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2007/text/at34.txt, he praised the contribution made by the Minister of Health and others. No doubt the Minister has made a contribution. However, we must, as the ordinary public, ask, “has she done well in her job? Or at least, done enough?”
He goes on to say the media in particular, has been peddling lies. Serious accusations, given that the media, specifically the Sunday Times, broke the story of the Minister’s alleged kleptomaniac past and drinking binges. Now here’s another question to that effect; if these allegations are truly a lie, surely suing the paper would bring out the truth in a public court case? Is someone afraid of what may come out during such court proceedings?
Does the Minister of Health enjoy a few dops of the hot stuff? Probably. She may even do so with her boss since he is a brandy connoisseur himself. So what? A lot of people do. Does it negatively affect the way in which she does her job? Now THAT my friend, would be the crux of the story, nothing else.
Should it also be true that the Minister stole jewellery and other goods in Botswana and got a jail sentence there, why not just admit it? A number of ANC officials have been to jail before, it’s not a new event. Admit it, tell the country what happened, say you are sorry, say the Minister served her time and is now a reformed and rehabilitated member of normal society. Simple.
My thought is that anyone who disobeys orders in a work environment, time and time again, deserves to be shafted. There is no way I could tolerate working with someone who does not listen to his / her colleagues, regardless of their position, goes off and does their own thing at will, and is seen not to be “one of us”. This is more so if that person has been given warnings over and over again. Therefore for the President to fire the former Deputy Health Minister in the manner that he did is totally normal and acceptable, even in corporate SA. We cannot sit in a boardroom meeting and decide on issues, then one of us goes off and says the opposite to the public. What kind of message would our organisation be sending out there? The only other thing though, is that although the executive cabinet is appointed by the President, my imagination says Deputies should answer to their Ministers, and not to the President directly? That you have to ask the President of the country, a very busy man who sleeps only 3 hours a day, to sign your form for an official overseas trip seems a bit trivial. We have over 40 Ministers and their Deputies. Do they all have to ask for permission each time they go to work? I don’t know how these things work, but it all sounds like primary-school to me.
So then why so much noise about the sacking? Two reasons really: first, the President has not had awesome press ever since the HIV/AIDS thing broke out a few years ago. The minister of health has also not had good press at all, and she would have, had she deviated from the policies set by Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma when she was head of the country’s health system under Dr Nelson Mandela. Mandela himself in fact, should have done much more to curb the scourge of AIDS as he was in charge when the epidemic went from bad to worse. One of the reasons the old man did not do much during his tenure is that he was already looking out the door into pensionhood, meaning the incumbent Thabo Mbeki was already taking over the resigns even as the old man was still in executive power. Fact is, Mbeki has been President of SA for the past 10 years or so, with two more years to go. So fortunately the AIDS and ARV problem did not land with a beetroot salad from Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (forgive me, I couldn’t resist). However, she did and still does have a little power to help the situation, rather than perpetuate it. That she and the President are not seen, I repeat, not seen, to be helping is the first reason people got mad at the sacking of Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.
Secondly, the President’s firing of Mr Jacob Zuma from cabinet is still one of society’s most divisive and most topical issues, particularly as regards to the manner in which JZs files have been “handled” by the chief. Thus when this whole Madlala-Routledge saga happened, people got flashbacks of the Zuma affair and began to see the President in an even darker light than they had before. Funny that, because, even though Mandela was seen as the savior, he was never taken seriously as a working President, that is, one that is in office grafting like a worker bee, making sure things are getting done. Mbeki we saw as this worker bee, which is why when he officially took over the country applauded in unison, saying “now we’ll get to work, the honeymoon is over”.
Alas, the work did not happen fast enough in people’s eyes. Instead we got scandal after scandal, – high crime; corruption in government; email hoax sagas; the JZ affair; the slapping of Winnie Mandela at the stadium; Khutsong; HIV/AIDS; Bulelani Ngcuka and the Scorpions; the banning of political commentators from SABC; the Deputy President’s R700 000 flight to Dubai; the President’s third term utterances; our “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; the Selebi-Agliotti fume – and the list goes on.
Last Friday in the President’s weekly online essay http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2007/text/at34.txt, he praised the contribution made by the Minister of Health and others. No doubt the Minister has made a contribution. However, we must, as the ordinary public, ask, “has she done well in her job? Or at least, done enough?”
He goes on to say the media in particular, has been peddling lies. Serious accusations, given that the media, specifically the Sunday Times, broke the story of the Minister’s alleged kleptomaniac past and drinking binges. Now here’s another question to that effect; if these allegations are truly a lie, surely suing the paper would bring out the truth in a public court case? Is someone afraid of what may come out during such court proceedings?
Does the Minister of Health enjoy a few dops of the hot stuff? Probably. She may even do so with her boss since he is a brandy connoisseur himself. So what? A lot of people do. Does it negatively affect the way in which she does her job? Now THAT my friend, would be the crux of the story, nothing else.
Should it also be true that the Minister stole jewellery and other goods in Botswana and got a jail sentence there, why not just admit it? A number of ANC officials have been to jail before, it’s not a new event. Admit it, tell the country what happened, say you are sorry, say the Minister served her time and is now a reformed and rehabilitated member of normal society. Simple.
It must be disconcerting to the President that he may well leave a legacy that is mostly devoid of praise for the good work he has done, that all his earnest efforts will be entirely drowned by the issues I tabled above. That he is a great orator, reader, intellectual and visionary has not translated satisfaction among the general population.
Is it too late to change this perception? I certainly think not.
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