Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi deserves credit for the huge reduction in HIV/Aids deaths. Gone are the days of President Thabo Mbeki's AIDS denialism when the court had to enforce anti-retroviral treatment..
I remember former Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa and his MECs refusing to say that HIV causes AIDS. In June 2001 I pushed a motion in the Gauteng Legislature that nevirapine be used to stop HIV-positive mothers infecting their babies.
I estimated that 5000 babies a year could be saved from HIV infection. But the ANC voted the motion down. ANC speakers said it was not proven to work, and accused the NNP/DP Western Cape government of "experimenting" on black people by giving them anti-retrovirals.
This type of attitude delayed treatment and cost the lives of many babies. Now government hails the 2.7% rate of mother-to-child HIV-transmission, which compares to about 30% without any treatment.
I thought of this when the ANC recently rejected my motion in the Gauteng Legislature for an emergency housing kit to be provided after shack fires. These kits have zinc sheets, a door frame and door, wood and nails. Victims of the 1000 shacks that burn down every year in Gauteng would appreciate them greatly. But according to the ANC's Mike Madlala my motion was "frivolous, vexatious and obscene", and also "an insult to the intelligence of the people of this province."
He raved on about it being "counter-revolutionary" and said the motion "must be rejected with the contempt it deserves, as worthless and without substance." So shack fire victims will lose out, just as babies died because ANC politicians played political games in the face of dire need. It shows how the ANC has lost concern for the most vulnerable.
It's more concerned about elite privileges like the notorious Blue Lights beloved by ANC politicians who want to whiz through traffic. ANC MPL Chris Stali has attacked the DA's bill in the Western Cape Legislature to restrict the Blue Lights.
According to Stali, the bill reflects the DA's "apartheid and colonial mindset" and targets "professional blacks". He says it's because "the DA longs for separate development and to cut the Western Cape off from the rest of South Africa."
Why this over-blown and bizarre ANC response to sensible DA proposals?
It's partly an irrational contrarianism that if the DA says it's good, then it must actually be bad. So the ANC opposed emergency fire kits in Gauteng even though the ANC introduced them in the Western Cape after the Constitutional Court Grootboom judgement.
There is also a childish desire not to give the DA credit for anything, and a fear that voters will turn to the DA in gratitude. While the ANC often accuses the DA of not being a "constructive" opposition, it shoots down good DA ideas on frivolous grounds. And the ANC in opposition is particularly vicious and small-minded, as we see in the Western Cape.
It's a worrying regression from the days when President Nelson Mandela said graciously that there were good people in all political parties.
Our country suffers when government and opposition see each other as enemies, rather than opponents who differ sincerely on how best to move forward.
Jack Bloom MPL, is DA Leader in the Gauteng Legislature. This article first appeared in The Citizen.
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