Just let me get on with the job, acting health minister tells critics

Acting minister of health Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has pleaded with South Africans to allow her to do her job amid criticism that she is not the right person to fill Zweli Mkhize’s shoes.

“Let my work speak for me, I am here to do the work,” Kubayi-Ngubane said in an interview with Newzroom Afrika on Saturday.

“There is a reason why the president asked me specifically to do the work and for that I need to continue to be who I am and do what colleagues in cabinet and the president need me to do.”

The tourism minister was asked to take the reins at the health ministry when President Cyril Ramaphosa placed Mkhize on special leave amid a Special Investigating Unit probe into the R150m Digital Vibes scandal.

Kubayi-Ngubane, who attended her first health portfolio committee in parliament on Thursday, took over the reins at the start of the third wave of Covid-19 infections.

Critics have expressed concern that she does not have medical qualifications, but she maintained that “the issue is not personal”.

She told interviewer Mpho Sithole: “Sometimes people feel that we have not taken the right decisions, and there has been a trust deficit in the public which has led to many people questioning our decisions as government.

“Although I cannot answer for the president, I can answer for myself. Having moved portfolios gave me exposure and experience. So when I move to a new portfolio, I know which questions to ask, at what point, what to look for and how to prioritise in terms of immediate things needing to be done and long term.”

This week, Kubayi-Ngubane met Johnson & Johnson executives in a bid to save the vaccination rollout. She also met MECs to discuss the third wave shortly before Ramaphosa toughened the lockdown to level 3 on Tuesday.

The acting minister said she was underwhelmed by the public response to surging infections, particularly in Gauteng .

This had led to an increase in hospital admissions and forced the government to deploy the military health service on Friday.

“South Africans will only see members of the SA National Defence Force in the hospitals assisting the department at testing sites to increase capacity, contact tracing, capacity and backing up,” she said.

“One of the things we learnt with the first and the second wave is that if you do not respond with the human capital then your human resources, like your nurses and doctors, get fatigue and test positive and have to isolate.”

Kubayi-Ngubane said with increased law enforcement, the country could see numbers going down in the next two weeks.

She also spoke about the controversial cook-off in which the tourism ministry paid media personality Somizi

It's unfortunate that the “whole thing turned out in the manner that it did”, she said.

“Initially it looked like an issue of corruption, I can assure the nation is that has been no mismanagement of money and corruption. I am one of the leaders who do not speak right and go left.”

She said she was aware that the Public Finance Management Act does not allow her to get involved in procurement processes.

“We have agreed that we will send all the details to the chairperson of the (portfolio) committee in terms of the invoice that we received and what has been paid.”

She said she stood by her response to parliament as it had been signed off by the department's director-general and CFO.

She expressed concern that her tourism portfolio “will suffer” due to her new role.

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