FIRE MANANA SAYS HATCH - Stephané Bothma
Lowvelder 10 MARCH 2003
An urgent call for the immediate dismissal of Mpumalanga’s health minister, Ms Sibongile Manana, was made by the leader of the opposition in the provincial legislature.
Mr Clive Hatch said the allegations levelled against the provincial health department read "like a charge sheet against a person charged with serial mismanagement". Welcoming the announcement by finance and economic affairs MEC, Mr Jacob Mabena, that R2,1 billion would be spent on beefing up health services in the province, Hatch said that taxpayers demanded, however, that the management of the department be beyond reproach.
"Manana can protest her innocence and tell us of the awards won by individual hospitals or units, but that does not alter the fact that the Mpumalanga Department of Health is a disaster," he said. The mismanagement in that department was not new and unless the premier took decisive action immediately, it would simply continue.
Listing the "indictments" against the health department, Hatch said clinics built in the province at tremendous costs were standing empty, not enough was being done to treat and care for persons living with HIV/Aids and that severe shortages of medicines at hospitals and clinics were an ongoing problem.
"How many lives has this shortage of medicines claimed? No matter which clinic or hospital one visits the first problem everyone raises is that of a shortage of staff, both medical and nursing."
According to Hatch, the mismanagement of the department lay squarely on Manana’s shoulders. He added that the major problem was that she had concentrated too much on her personal vendetta against Grip (Greater Nelspruit Rape
Intervention Project) and spent too little time caring for the sick of the province. Hatch was referring to the long drawn-out attempt by Manana to evict Grip from provincial hospitals at a cost of tens of thousands of rand in legal fees.
"How much longer must we tolerate this mismanagement? In my opinion she is not carrying out her constitutional mandate. I therefore believe that when I demand that the premier redeploy her into the ranks of the unemployed, I am doing the right thing," Hatch said.
