Ms Thandi NontenjThe United Democratic Movement Women’s Organisation (UDEMWO) has noted how the Eastern Cape provincial government has made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The uncharted waters we are currently navigating have exposed that the ruling party is not interested in the wellbeing of our people, but rather in their own stomachs.
Health MEC Sindiswa Gomba and the entire Eastern Cape African National Congress (ANC) leadership simply do not care about the lives of the poor and its nauseating. The only time they pretend to care for the people they claim to represent is when they need their votes, thereafter the people are left to their own devices.
The fact that, yesterday, hundreds of used Covid-19 test kits were found lying in the veld near Mdantsane in the Eastern Cape, is shocking beyond belief. Anything could have happened if not for an informed Good Samaritan who noticed the used test kits scattered next to the N2 highway. What if this is not the only place were these kits were lost? What if children pick them up and play with them?
Besides that, if what reports say are true, they represent at least 500 people who are awaiting their Covid-19 test results, but they will have to be redone as these kits have now been environmentally compromised. Worse still, who is to say that all the kits that were indeed found, comprises the entire load that was seemingly on route to Port Elizabeth?
How exactly did the kits get inside the veld? They surely would have been lying shattered on the tarmac if this was indeed an honest mistake.
UDEMWO calls on the Eastern Cape Health Department to immediately launch an investigation into how those test kits were lost in the first instance and more importantly, put measures in place to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again.
Issued by:
Ms Thandi Nontenja
UDEMWO Secretary General
