Mabuza ‘not the right man’ to head ministerial Covid-19 vaccine body, says DA

The DA has slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to appoint Deputy President David Mabuza to lead the inter-ministerial committee (IMC) on the country’s Covid-19 vaccination programme, saying the appointment is unconscionable and “nothing more than ANC factional battles playing itself out”.

Ramaphosa made the announcement on the establishment of the committee during a webinar on Tuesday organised by the ANC’s Progressive Business Forum, saying the committee would be tasked with dealing with the rollout of ensuring that the vaccination programme is well done.

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However, DA MP and spokesperson on health, Siviwe Gwarube, said on Tuesday the party did not believe that Mabuza was a competent and reliable figure to oversee the process due to his “history of failure in governance”.

“As premier of Mpumalanga, Mabuza ran the province like his own personal fiefdom where corruption, political violence, and the complete collapse of the state is still a lasting legacy in the province,” Gwarube said in a statement.

“He currently serves as the chairperson of the political task team on Eskom, a position in which he has failed dismally. South Africa is nowhere close to energy security since Mabuza has been brought on board, in fact we have been plunged further into darkness,” she added.

Gwarube said Mabuza had effectively been an absentee deputy president since the beginning of Covid-19 outbreak in the country last year, accusing him of hiding for the past 10 months.

“It is, therefore, unconscionable that president Ramaphosa would entrust one of the most monumental tasks of South Africa’s democratic dispensation in the hands of a man who is not only allegedly corrupt but who is clearly incapable of overseeing a programme of this magnitude,” she said.

“David Mabuza is simply not the right man for the job.”

Gwarube also said that Mabuza’s appointment to the IMC “proved that South Africa’s Covid vaccine plan is now no longer about saving lives. It is about his political alliances within the ANC”. She said that this was evidenced by the fact that Ramaphosa made the announcement on the establishment of the committee during the ANC’s Progressive Business Forum, instead of official government communication channels.

“It is also unclear why, of all the people in the executive, he would choose somebody who has not done an iota of work on this crisis. This is nothing more than ANC factional battles playing itself out,” she said.

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