Deputy President David Mabuza. Picture: Gallo Images
The fact that Deputy President David Mabuza had to be flown to Russia again to sick treatment has raised alarm in official circles for a number of reasons.
It’s understood he returned to South Africa late this week after missing a number of previously scheduled activities.
As second only to Cyril Ramaphosa as head of state, the fact that Mabuza could apparently not find reliable follow-up treatment in South Africa has government insiders worried.
It appears Ramaphosa may also not have known what Mabuza was doing and that the deputy president had been feeling far worse than he may like to let on.
Ramaphosa’s office confirmed that Mabuza asked the president for time “to rest”, but they referred all questions about the deputy president’s movements back to Mabuza’s spokesperson.
Despite Mabuza officially having been on “sick leave” for the past three weeks, his spokesperson, Thami Ngwenya, told the Sunday Times he was never actually ill at all.
The Citizen first learnt of Mabuza’s trip to Russia for treatment on Friday and was unable to elicit a comment about it from Ngwenya despite calls and messages sent to his number.
Ngwenya refused to tell the Sunday Times who had funded Mabuza’s trip and the possible treatment costs, answering only in general terms about how former and current heads of state have their costs covered by the state.
Mabuza could be back at work at the Union Buildings tomorrow, with him apparently having told a Sunday Times source he had merely gone to Moscow for a routine check-up related to his poisoning incident three years ago. He does not “trust” South African doctors any more.
However, why he would need to drop his attendance of long pre-planned events for a secretive and drawn-out “routine check-up” in Russia has led some ANC insiders to worry that Mabuza may have been gravely ill again.
The elite Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, also called the “Kremlin Hospital”, “Kremlyovka” and “Kremlin Clinic” treated Mabuza in 2015 when he was flown there in a Gupta-owned jet. He claimed in the National Council of Provinces this year he couldn’t remember any details about whose jet it had been.
“I can’t even tell you who was in that flight that was taking me to hospital. The only thing I’ve noticed was that I was on a flight, but throughout the flight I was on very high pain medication,” he said in a question-and-answer session in September.
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