The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has applauded Premier David Mabuza for taking a step of fulfilling his promises.

Mabuza chaired his first aids council meeting at Ingwenyama Conference & Sport Resort a few weeks ago.

This comes after the activists of the organisation in Gert Sibande district last month picketed outside out Graceland Hotel in Secunda before the start of a plenary meeting of the South African National Aids Council (Sanac) and handed over a memorandum to Mabuza, in which they requested that he must lead by good example and chair the Provincial Aids Council.

The provincial coordinator for TAC, Ms Thandi Maluka told Mpumalanga Mirror they were happy that Mabuza had responded in time as he promised during the private meeting that the organisation held with the premier, minister of health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi and the deputy president, Mr Kgalema Motlanthe that the aids council would be fully functional by the end of May.

”We are happy that the premier fulfilled his promises and we believe that this year everything will go smoothly because our leader is involved. We believe that if the aids councils are chaired by political leaders, including the premier as the leader of this province, people will be encouraged to take them very seriously,“ said Maluka. She added that they had noticed that if leaders were not participating in those councils, people acted reluctantly when it came to reporting back in provincial aids councils and said: “We are confident that this year will see progress in fighting HIV/Aids, recently as an organization, we discovered that a local aids council had been launched at one of our local municipalities, Pixley Ka-Sekasema.“

In his first chairing meeting, Mabuza indicated that the Mpumalanga Provincial Aids Council (Mpac) will make a difference in the fight against this disease said, “Let’s accept criticism as a province and that we contributed to the problem. I will try my best to ensure that we move speedily in trying to close the gaps created. I am grateful that our executive mayors did their best. We are going to pick up the necessary momentum and fly with this battle. We must spend a lot of energy in an effort to save our people,“ said Mabuza.

He alluded that the first meeting has shown a sign of improvement. This province is currently ranked the second highest with regard to the HIV/Aids prevalence after KwaZulu-Natal.