The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has held a celebration as Barbara Hogan replaced the controversial Mbeki confidant and Aids denialist minister Tshabalala-Msimang.
Hogan, a woman from white working class roots in Benoni the East Rand spent 8 years in jail after joining the ANC underground. She was close to Andrew Feinstein, the ANC member who helped open up and fight corruption in government and wrote After the Party.
Like Feinstein, who was fired by Mbeki as the ANC head of Scopa, the parliamentary accounts committee for investigating that arms deal, Hogan’s principled stance also ran into trouble.
As chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee Hogan sought to ensure the provision of drugs to fight HIV.
She was called in and reprimanded by President Mbeki for querying Trevor Manual, the minister of finance’s budget because Manual had not costed the provision of anti retro virals (ARV’s) into his budget. Like Feinstein she was also fired from her position as chairperson.
Fantastic news that she is in government.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Penzhorn
// Sep 26, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Hurray!
2 David Ansara
// Sep 30, 2008 at 4:57 am
What I love about Achmat is his ability to convey complex ideas in a language that is accessible to ordinary people. He has a vitality and clarity of purpose that is really inspiring.
Hogan seems to have struggle cred AND genuine street cred which is a rare combination these days. Hopefully the next few months will show us what she is all about.
Now all we have to do is get rid of that dim D.G. Thami Mseleku and the world will be a qualitatively better place.
3 Kameraad Mhambi
// Sep 30, 2008 at 10:19 am
After having read After the Party I was wondering a lot about Barbara Hogan. Thinking she must be extremely frustrated and how long she would last inside the ANC.
It seems she was right to hold out, but I’m still disappointed that others (Kader Asmal for instance) did not speak out earlier as Feinstein had done. We should not have reached this low point in SA politics.
Achmat is really impressive. I think one of the few individual leaders that could stand a chance to save the Scorpoins is Achmat.
If he lead a civil society movement to do so it would be a very powerful force no doubt. He has the pro poor and struggle credentials bar none and it would be very hard for the ANC to attack him and make accusations stick.
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