STRANGER THAN FICTION
STRANGER THAN FICTION
EAT YOUR VEGGIES
Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang, Minister of Health, attended the global Aids conference
in Toronto in August 2006 and defended the display at the the South African
exhibit -- which was stocked with beetroot, lemon and garlic, the ingredients
that she says are key to fighting HIV/Aids. It caused hysterical laughter
amongst the delegates.
She said that she does
not mind being called "Dr Beetroot" or "Dr Garlic" as she is convinced
of the fact that anti-retroviral medicine is poisonous. Her methods were
educational to South Africans, she said. Her main goal was "prevention,
prevention, prevention", she emphasised.
Ignoring a warning from
the University of Stellenbosch’s Nutrition Information Centre that the
African potato causes bone marrow suppression in HIV patients, and cautioned
against its use, the erudite representative of the Rainbow Nation at the
conference told her listeners that “We have a constitution which says
people have choices to make. If people choose to use traditional medicine
… why not give them those choices?”
Two bottles of anti-retroviral
drugs plus male and female condoms were later hastily dotted among the
vegetables by Khomanani staff.
The 16th International
Aids Conference, with more than 30 000 delegates and 2 000 journalists
in attendance, saw themes such as prevention methods, harm reduction, nutrition
and gender inequality featuring in thousands of abstracts, sessions, poster
discussions and exhibitions throughout the week. South Africa's contribution
in stead was described as "a salad bar".
Angly South African delegates
who are members of the the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) vandalised the
exbibit and called on Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang
to be fired.
South Africa will "never
achieve redemption" for its HIV/Aids policies, the United Nations special
envoy to Africa told the closing session of the International Aids Conference.
Stephen Lewis accused
the government of expounding HIV/Aids theories "more worthy of a lunatic
fringe than a concerned and compassionate state".
"Between 600 and 800
people a day die [of HIV/Aids] in South Africa. The government has a lot
to atone for, and I am of the opinion they will never achieve redemption,"
Lewis said to a deafening roar of applause from the audience.
Mrs
Sandra Black-Pahad, wife of the deputy minister of foreign affairs, Aziz
Pahad, was arrested twice within a span of three months for drunken driving.
On August 15th, 2003
she was arrested on the Groote Schuur estate whilst driving a BMW. She
appeared three times on the charge in the Goodwood magistrate's court,
but avoided the media every time. On her first appearance it was moved
to early morning (hours before the scheduled time), and on another occasion
it was moved to another day on which she was to appear.
On Saturday November
8th, 2003 she was again arrested and released on bail of R500 after blood
samples of her were taken at the Delft police station. She was stopped
whilst driving a Mercedes-Benz "recklessly" in De Mist-avenue, Delft, and
arrested after she tried to get away.
Both the minister and
his wife were unavailable for comment.
When
you see a car with flashing blue lights trying to pass you at high speed
on the South African roads, it could very well be Manto Tshabalala-Msimang,
minister of health, in one of her official cars on her way to an appointment.
Tshabalala-Msimang ordered
the blue lights "as a matter of urgency" in December 2001. The order had
to be completed within 24 hours and was given to a senior officer in the
department of health.
The reason? The minister's
full program of appointments.
Mr Sibani Mngadi, ministerial
spokesperson, when asked for an explanation, gave a long list of committees
in which Tshabalala-Msimang serves. "HIV/Aids keeps her very busy" he explained
from Durban where she visited a black school.
Tshabalala-Msimang has
two sets of blue lights - one for use on her official Mercedes Benz in
Pretoria, and the other for use on her official Volvo in Cape Town.
The blue lights left
other departments green with envy. "We also have to get such blue lights"
one official reacted.
In August 2006 Tshabalala-Msimang
ordered a gold coloured Mercedes-Benz S500, worth R1 million, as her official
car. She requested R40 000 worth of extras to be built in, including an
infrared camera in front of the car, which can be activated at night to
assist the driver to look ahead on a TV monitor; leather upholstery, and
air bags for all passengers. It could not be ascertained whether the car
will be fitted with blue flashing lights on the roof.
NO COMMENT
Minister of Health Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has been rushing from pillar to post to prevent Aids activists implementing court decisions on the antiretroviral, nevirapine. All these court appearances have kept her from being fitted for her new uniform: Dr Manto TM is to become an honorary colonel with 1-Military Hospital.
Mpumalanga
province's controversial health minister, Sibongile Manana, has tried once
again to evict the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project from two
of the province's hospitals. Manana went to the Pretoria High Court on
January 28th, 2003 to ask that the organisation, known as Grip, be removed
from the premises it occupies at the Rob Ferreira Hospital in Nelspruit
and Themba Hospital near White River. But the MEC dropped her case
after her lawyers conceded that the case was "weak".
She was ordered to pay
all legal costs - the second time that she has had to foot the bill for
her attempts to evict Grip. Manana's last court venture cost taxpayers
R24 000, and the bill for this lawsuit is expected to be even higher as
the state has hired private lawyers to pursue its case. Manana is expected
to resubmit her High Court application.
Manana and Grip - which
provides free counselling, health care and anti-Aids drugs to rape victims
in the province - have been at loggerheads since October 2000, when
she lambasted Grip for providing the drugs to rape survivors.
At the time, Manana -
who has opposed the provision of Aids drugs in state hospitals - insisted
the drugs were part of a plot to undermine President Thabo Mbeki and the
ANC government. She also claimed that the drugs endangered black lives
and threatened to turn the country into a "banana republic".
Referring to this event,
Barbara Kenyon, Grip's chief executive , said in court papers that Manana
wanted to prevent the project from giving anti-Aids drugs to rape survivors.
"The plaintiff [Manana] appeared to be of the view that by advising
rape victims of the existence of antiretroviral drugs and by assisting
them to purchase some (if they were prescribed by a doctor and if the victim
chose to do so), the respondent [Grip] was in some way undermining the
plaintiff and the national government's policy in relation to HIV/Aids,"
she said.
Soon afterwards, Manana
conceded that her actions were illegal and Grip was allowed back onto the
premises. Then in May 2001, Manana once again applied to court to have
Grip evicted. Anita Kleinsmidt , Grip's attorney, said Manana had argued
that because the project was providing free antiretrovirals , it was creating
an expectation that state hospitals had to do the same.
Manana once again withdrew
her application and had to pay Grip's legal costs of R24 000. But she returned
to court again this year, arguing that Grip was occupying the premises
illegally.
In November 2002 the
Mpumalanga Health Department admited that it has spent more than R6-million
- one-third of its Aids budget - on soccerr matches, plays, prayer days
and other events.
The department's Aids
budget is R3.8-million, supplemented by R15.6-million in conditional
grants from the national Health Department. Conditional grants may
only be used for HIV testing, the provision of care for terminally ill
Aids patients, and for giving HIV-positive pregnant women anti-Aids
drugs .
Freelance
writer and editor Claudia Braude, who compiled a report on racism in the
media for the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), was paid R80
000 to do the job. According to The Star, Braude was paid about R13
300 for each of the six months she was contracted to the commission. She
said that she was discouraged by the SAHRC from personally interviewing
journalists.
The
SAHRC's inquiry was prompted by a complaint from the South African Black
Lawyers' Association and the Association of Black Accountants that accused
two national weekly newspapers of racial bias in "trivializing" violence
in the black community while concentrating on allegations of corruption
against black professionals, politicians, and civil servants.
Editors
across the country have slammed the report. Edtitorial descriptions of
the report ranged from "psychobabble" to "an aberration".
The Sunday Times described the report as follows:
"The document is a staggeringly inept hodge-podge of confused thinking, pseudo science, half-truths, distortions of fact and, in some instances, wholesale departures from reality".
In
the report Braude claims that a photograph of a crow and a maribou stork
near a city refuse container in Johannesburg's Star newspaper signifies
"[white]
anxieties about decaying urban infrastructure with fears of incursions
from Africa". The caption clearly states that the picture was taken
in Uganda.
SAHRC
chairman dr. Barney ("Piranha") Pityana
co-authored a newspaper article, headlined "Media is an obstacle to change",
published in the Sowetan on August 25th, 1997. The two concluding paragraphs
of Pityana's article read:
Predictably, the SAHRC's
report "Faultlines: Inquiry into racism in the media" on the investigation,
published in August 2000, found that "the South African media can be
characterised as racist institutions".
In an editorial in the
Sunday Times of 2000-08-27, the report was described as "..Instead
of offering a serious look at an important subject, the report reads more
like an undergraduate student's assignment on the theory of racism ...
The weakness of the report is a direct result of a flawed process. In conducting
its work, the commission adopted an adversorial approach to the media,
virtually finding them guilty before the inquiry began. Any attempts to
persuade the commission to approach the exercise in a co-operative and
inclusive manner were dismissed by it and its chairman, Barney
Pityana, as defensiveness... It is clear that the commission wasted
a process that could have enriched our understanding of racism and helped
us tackle it....The recommendation that a regulatory body to oversee the
media be established by legislation is worrisome. The media are already
subject to a swathe of laws preventing them from acting as a law unto themselves.
They are also subject to the Constitution, in terms of which they cannot
violate people's rights...."
TOEING THE LINE WITH FINGERPRINTS
Two
officials of the Department of Welfare, John Bantom (42) and Xolisile Peter
(31), were found guilty in March 2000 in the Magistrate's court of Zwelitsha
on charges of fraud after they used their toes to falsify the fingerprints
of dead pensioners.
The two were responsible
for paying out pensions to aged people in the former Transkei over a period
of three years. Whenever a pensioner passed away, they made imprints of
their own big toes on pension documents, pretending it to be fingerprints
of the thumbs of the pensioners. They pocketed the pensions paid out.
Capt Craig Townsend of
the Port Elizabeth fraud branch of the SAPD said they became suspicious
when they found some fifty documents of dead pensioners, all bearing the
same "thumbprint". The thumbprints agreed with the big-toe-prints
of the two accused.
CITIZEN'S ARREST
When
a suspected robber fleeing police arrest leapt into the gorilla enclosure
at Johannesburg Zoo during July 1997, Max the 180 kg 27-year old gorilla
did the honourabe thing and tried to make a citizen's arrest. He attacked
the intruder, pinning him to the ground. The gorilla was shot through in
the neck and shoulder for his trouble and was rushed to the zoo surgery
to undergo emergency surgery. He had to taken to Milpark Hospital for further
x-rays to locate the bullets, where a top team of radiologists and a trauma
surgeon, Dr F Plani, were standing ready, having offered their services
- free - to "Patient Mr M Gorrilla". Whhenn,, to much relief, no bullet
was found lodged in his skull, Max was discharged. Doctors decided to leave
the bullet in his shoulder. Visitors to the zoo, shocked that not even
animals were safe from criminals, crowded around a sign outside the enclosure
which, much like a bulletin board outside Buckhingham Palace, gave updates
of Max'z condition. Get-well messages for Max were received as far as from
the Moscow zoo, and the zoo in Mexico City.
ZUMA'S EXPENSIVE PRIVATE THRONE
The
cost to purchase and install a new private lavatory for Min Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma
in the Union Buildings, after she occupied the Office of the Minister for
Foreign Affairs late in 1999, amounted to the staggering amount of R70
000. The installation took some seven months, mainly due to delays caused
by problems in getting permission from the appropriate authorities. Zuma's
lavatory costs the equivalent of four low-cost houses and/or two brand
new Uno cars.
FOREIGN MINISTER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA
In the second week of
July 2000 Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi bankrolled the Organisation of
African Unity summit in Togo. Gaddafi goes by the title "Brother Leader",
and invited foreign ministers at the summit to his tent for chats.
When the South African
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nkosazana Zuma, made her appearance, he promptly
announced that he had appointed her Foreign Minister
of the United States of Africa.
Zuma politely informed
him that she would have to ask her boss before taking up the offer.
BENGUSPEAK
At a parliamentary briefing
at the start of the 1997 session, Minister of Education, Sibusiso Bengu,
said:
"We will transform
the process of transformation of higher education institutions".
While everyone present
was still trying to work that one out, he added:
"We are changing ourselves
so that we can truly become agents of change".
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Tito Mboweni, Minister of Labour, announced the start of the "skills revolution" in March 1997 when he launched the green paper on skills development. The initiative included "SETOS", which stood for Sector Education Training Organisations. This term was coined after Mboweni discovered that the original name proposed by his department - Sectoral Learning Organisations - had the acronym of SLO.
DOUBLE STUDIES
Balisa Atricia Joni is
a 29 year old student from Bisho, Eastern Province, who has seven years
of study but no degree. The Eastern Cape Finance, Provincial Expenditure
and Management Services Department in Bisho have awarded Ms Jonie R35 000
in bursaries to study at the University of Fort Hare and the University
of the Western Cape simultaneously during 1997, and for the same degree.
Despite her studying
for seven years, UWC and Fort Hare records paint a dismal picture of Ms
Joni's exceptionally lenghty academic travails.
Ms Joni had first enrolled
at Fort Hare in 1990 for a Bachelor of Pedagogics degree, but failed the
crucial first-year English and education courses. She had then registered
for a Bacelor of Commerce degree, but again failed several subjects. The
intrepid Ms Joni then enrolled in the economic sciences, but managed to
get "excluded" from her first-year economics course in 1993.
Later she registerd for
a Bachelor of Commerce degree at UWC in 1995, but failed most of her first-year
management information systems courses and, again, economics.
The persistent Ms Joni
re-registered at UWC during 1996, and again failed most of her subjects.
Armed with R35 000 in
Bisho bursaries, Ms Joni re-registered at both universities during 1997,
and is enrolled (as student no 95-60266) for her fourth year of tudy for
B.Com (a three year degree course) at UWC and third year (as student no
90-22644) for the same three year degree course at Fort Hare.
MEC Shepherd Mayatula
launched an investigation into how his department awarded Ms Joni R35 000
in bursaries for 1997. His secretary, Linekaya Vanda, explained that it
was the fault of the universities that two bursaries were awarded to Ms
Joni.
RAPID RESULTS
The Department of Education announced during August 1996, a couple of days before the closing date for applications, that the position of Director of Communications had been filled.
ARITHMETIC: ADDING IT UP
"The number of pupils who stole (examination) papers or were caught cheating accounts for about 0,5 per cent of the total number of pupils who wrote the exam. The rest - 95,5 per cent - had nothing to do witth tthe scandal and are a honest and harworking group of kids".
NO RISKS TAKEN
In a Gauteng high school
an examination paper to be written had not been delivered on the morning
it was to be written. The Education Department was phoned, who promised
to fax the paper through promptly. A little later the fax machine spit
out the wrong paper - one which had to be written a week later. Again the
Education Department was phoned, asking them to fax the correct paper.
The department apologised
for the mistake, but had one request: they will now fax the right paper,
but could the school please fax back the wrong paper which had been sent
inadvertedly - otherwise the security could be at risk and the integrity
of the examination system could be questioned...
SHADES OF BLACK
Suren Singh, a temporary
lecturer at the University of Durban-Westville applied to the Supreme Court
to set aside an "affirmative-action appointment", because he claims the
successful candidate won the post only after assuming an African name.
Dr Carol Bernice Nonkwelo,
a coloured person who formerly had the surname Wellington, was appointed
as a permanent lecturer in the microbiology department after the name-change.
"I am just as black
as she is", Singh said. "On proper evaluation, Nonkwelo and I can
be considered to be equally deserving beneficiaries of any affirmative-action
policy that may be applied".
A MISSING TUTU
Trevor
Tutu, son of former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was sentenced in October 1991
to 3½ years in jail for making a bomb threat at East London's airport
in 1989. The threat delayed a Johannesburg-bound flight. After his appeal
failed, he skipped his R10 000 bail and a warrant for his arrest was issued
in September 1993. Since then Tutu continued his life in Johannesburg,
regularly meeting his father and his ex-wife.
Four years later, the
police claimed to have searched hotels and private homes in Gauteng and
Cape Town, to have spoken to him over the telephone and to have extracted
promises that he would give himself up, but were unable to locate him.
It took a Sunday Times
newpaper less than three days in August 1997 to locate him, living with
a woman friend in Barkston Drive, Blairgowrie, a suburb north of Johannesburg,
and reachable on his cellphone.
Police say they have
relentlessly chased him for four years. "We have done everything possible
to apprehend him, but have failed", said Sergeant John de Jager of
the Soweto fraud squad unit, who was asked to conduct the search by East
London police. "We are now considering returning the warrant to East
London as we could not find Tutu".
Tutu was finally rearrested
in August 1997. Called on his cellphone en route to East London, Tutu said
to a reporter:
"Man, these guys (the
police) are not giving me a had time. In fact, they are sympathetic. They
are being forced to do something they would have done a long time ago if
theyt had wanted to".
This remark spaked off
laughter in the background amongst the accompanying police.
Soon later, during November
1997, Tutu was given unconditional amnesty by the Amnesty Committee of
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, of which his father is the chairman,
without a public hearing.
ALMOST AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
"He has steadily eroded
his stature, becoming in the process a small man, lacking magnanimity and
generosity of spirit".
Desmond Tutu in his book
"No Future Without Forgiveness".
No, he was not talking
(as one would have suspected after him chairing the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission) of himself, but of former State President FW de Klerk.
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"Lying is nothing new. Many politicians publicly deny they did ertain things but then later admit to them. It is accepted and not unusual anywhere in the world.... I am not saying it is correct, but this is not a grievous enough mistake to send anyone to the guillotine. It was not the end of Clinton's life. I personally do not find it such a bad thing".
SLEEPY MAHLANGU
When he is not struggling
with telling the truth, Mpumalanga Premier Mahlangu seems to be dozing
off.
He decided to have a
personal inspection of flooded areas in his province after heavy downpours
in February 2000. Soon after the helicopter he commandeered for the inspection
tour took off, Mahlangu dozed off. After an extensive tour of the stricken
area, the helicopter returned to its base, and Mahlangu was awakened just
before it touched down.
During the same week,
he attended an important dinner. Whilst sitting at the main table, Mahlangu's
eyes closed and his cellphone fell in the soup plate in front of him. The
premier could not be reached by cellphone for a couple of days.
During September 2003
Mahlangu placed an advertisement in the City Press newspaper, with the
heading: "Freedom of the press has become a licence to kill." He
accuses the press of having stolen audit reports deatailing squandered
millions in his province: the press want to jail all black leaders; the
press steal candy from children, etc.
As he clumsily puts it
himself: "Imagine what a dispossessed Zimbabwean would do if they were
allowede to become journalists in our country. I can imagine that they
would attempt to kill the Mugabe in aal of us black political leaders."
NOT CRICKET, OLD CHAP
The United Cricket Board
censured two players in February 1999. Western Province's Brian McMillan
was told to apologise for using the term "coolie creeper", and Eastern
Province B captain Alan Badenhorst was banned for two years for calling
a Griqualand West player a "half-bred kaffir".
Strangely, there are
those who still find the term innoculous. "I would proud to be called
a kaffir and I am certainly a kaffir of Africa", says Moolman Mentz,
Freedom Front member of the Mpumalanga legislature, "just like [then
Mpumalanga] premier Mathews Phosa".
WHICH MAGICIAN?
Magician David Copperfield, on a visit to South Africa, inquired puzzedly: "Madiba magic? Never heard of it - what's Madiba?".
CRIME FIGHTERS: FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE
Five Johannesburg film students set out in March 1999 to make a documentary demonstrating that Soweto is not a dangerous place - they were robbed of their camera and equipment in the township whilst doing the filming. In August of the same year, Cape Town motivational speaker Roger Russel set out on a 4 200 km march across the country to "convince people that our crimefighters should be admired" - after just 20 km, he was robbed of his money, watch, backpack, sleeping bag and clothes.
PIK-SPEAK
”One
person, one vote within a unitary political system will mean our extermination.
I do not know of a single nation in the world that has committed that kind
of suicide”.
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