Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - November 2, 2008
Claire Keeton

The new minister of health isn't perfect. That's obvious. What's unusual is that Barbara Hogan is the only person, among many interviewed this week, to acknowledge her fallibility.

The admission marks a seismic shift in attitude from her predecessor.

"I've got plenty of flaws," Hogan said with her characteristic smile at a book launch for her partner, Ahmed Kathrada, in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

That evening she kept a low profile amid the fiction stacks while Kathrada was signing copies of A Simple Freedom.

But he joked that there would be domestic strife if he didn't identify her.

"If I don't identify someone here, I'll be in a lot of trouble ... Barbara Hogan is my partner and has been ever since she came out of jail and I came out of jail," the famed ex-political prisoner and friend of Nelson Mandela said with pride.

He was imprisoned for 26 years for treason and Hogan - the first South African woman to be sentenced for treason - was in Pretoria Central for nearly 10 years. She was released under the Indemnity Act of 1990.

Like Kathrada, her mind has always been her own.

"Barbara may not have had the keys to the gates, but she was in charge. Very much in charge ," said Marion Sparg, who spent five years in prison with her.

"I know that Barbara is capable of moving mountains and she will succeed in tackling the challenges that come with her appointment as minister of health. Nobody stands in her way."

It would be easy to eulogise the 56-year-old Hogan because she succeeds Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who failed utterly as the country's health leader. But the accolades for Hogan are about more than the collective relief that Dr Beetroot is gone. They pay tribute to the track record, commitment, skills and personality of an exceptional woman.

Hogan is described as someone with integrity who is extremely hard-working, rigorous, smart, independent, outspoken, passionate and generous.

And the new health chief not only sends the right messages, she is prepared to act on them. Hogan didn't hesitate when asked at the book store if she would take a public HIV test. "Of course, yes," she said of this symbolic step in the right direction.

Hogan has won exuberant and wide- ranging support from health professionals, scientists and Aids activists for her clear focus on HIV/Aids and TB as the top health priorities since her appointment on September 25.

She has long recognised the urgency around HIV/Aids, said Fatima Hassan, a senior attorney at the Aids Law Project.

Hogan supported antiretroviral treatment under Thabo Mbeki's rule, at a time when many of her ANC comrades remained silent about it.

Advocate George Bizos, who defended Hogan in court, said she would always stand up for what she felt was morally correct. "Barbara has shown she is independent-minded," said the human rights veteran.

Hogan, from the East Rand, joined the ANC underground in 1976.

"It had reached a stage, with the banning of the Black Consciousness Movement and the death of Steve Biko, that couldn't be tolerated," she said.

In 1981 she was detained and so brutally tortured during a year of solitary confinement that she tried to commit suicide. "I knew that I would be beaten up, and I knew that I had nothing more to say.

"It was this terrifying notion that they could kill you for nothing. By that stage, I'd been in interrogation for six or seven weeks, every day and all day, and the real nasties had started. I just lost all sense of proportion," she said.

The following year, she was convicted of treason and given a "manifestly unjust sentence", according to Bizos. "She's a peace-loving person," he said, adding that Hogan had upset the judge at her sentencing by wearing a yellow chrysanthemum as a symbol of support for the then banned ANC.

From the courtroom to her jail cell, Hogan remained defiant and determined.

Sparg, sentenced to 25 years for treason, recalled her first meeting in 1985 with the "legendary Barbara Hogan": "There was so much pain in her eyes and lines of suffering on her face. But there was also a steely determination and a smile that lit up her face like the sun. Nothing could have prepared me for the warmth and energy of this human dynamo.

"Barbara had quite literally turned the tables on prison management. Apart from the mental and spiritual freedom which Barbara never lost once, she had carved out a physical type of freedom within those four walls."

After her release, Hogan worked to build the ANC as a legal party in what is now Gauteng. In 1994, she became an MP and chaired the finance committee and the audit commission that oversaw the auditor-general's office.

Former speaker of parliament Frene Ginwala said: "She is an outstanding person. She was extremely hard-working. We need people like her who understand the issues. She was always prepared, whether in parliament or the ANC."

A number of Hogan's peers warned she should not be underestimated.

"An increasing number of people are going to find they are dealing with a formidable person," Hassan said.

"It will not be as easy as with the previous minister, who did not properly apply her mind to the transformation. We wanted a proper health minister. Now we have got one."

Hogan is a team player and is working closely with her deputy, Dr Molefi Sefularo, as well as consulting extensively. Gill Marcus, former deputy minister of finance, said Hogan was "a fabulous choice" for minister with her financial experience, passion and commitment.

"Her record speaks for itself, in the ANC and parliament," she said.

Hogan admitted, though, that she tripped up in her first cabinet meeting.

"I went to cabinet with my cellphone and I was e-mailing and texting away when a deputy minister came to me and said: æComrade Barbara, you are not allowed to have your cellphone in here.' "

Apart from her integrity, Hogan's concern for the poor and her courage were recurring themes. Hassan said Hogan was the kind of person who looked for ways to improve lives, even that of the car guard downstairs from her apartment. She said during a trip to Palestine in July, Hogan was the first to stand up to hostile police. "Barbara was the most fearless in confronting them."

Clearly, Hogan has lost none of her old fighting spirit - and she'll need it to do her job. But she also has a gentle side and likes to visit the cats in the gardens in Cape Town when she has time. At the moment, she scarcely has time to sleep.

Hogan is also sensitive to the constraints of power and would like, if possible, to stay in her apartment and not become isolated because of protocol such as bodyguards.

"When you are appointed minister, a bubble is created that separates you from the real world," she said, "like a roaming prison."

On the home front, Kathrada's diet had not suffered much with Hogan's absences, said historian Tim Couzens, who co- authored A Simple Freedom. "I asked him if he was going to starve and he said that their fridge was chock-a-block with food friends. And he added: æCooking was never Barbara's strong point.' "

At the book launch, Couzens jested with Hogan about her choices.

"The only reason she has taken this job as health minister is that she is desperately trying to avoid writing her autobiography. She has got to get her priorities right."

By all accounts - literally every person interviewed - Hogan has exactly what is needed to start mending the collapsing health system.

But, for now, she only has six months to turn it around - and she has no idea if she will stay on after the next elections.

And, remember, she is only human.

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