Russell gets Commissioner of Cooperatives position

MBABANE – Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo yesterday unveiled Russell Nxumalo as the new Commissioner of Cooperatives Development.

Nxumalo is taking over from the retired Commissioner Nonhlanhla Msibi, who left the office a couple of years ago. Since Msibi’s retirement, Bongani Maziya has been the Acting Commissioner. The new commissioner was described by the minister as a career civil servant, armed with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science in Public Administration and Industrial Sociology.

He began working for government in the Ministry of Public Service as a Human Resources Officer in 2010. He rose up the ranks and became a Senior Human Resources Officer at the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development.

Senior

When the country was chosen to Chair SADC in 2015, he was redeployed to the SADC Unit as Senior Programmes Officer in the same ministry, where he directed the successful hosting of the SADC Summit in August 2016 and the SADC Extraordinary Summit in March 2017.

While at the SADC Unit, he also doubled as Project Manager for the Strengthening National Regional Linkages (SNRL), programme which seeks to address key challenges that hinder success of regional integration in SADC by focusing on improving the linkages between SADC and its member States through the provision of capacity building programmes for national structures that are responsible for coordination of regional integration initiatives and support and alignment between regional protocols and policies in the member States.

This programme also enhances coordination, planning implementation, monitoring and evaluation of SADC policies, protocols and legal instruments.

Promoted

In 2021, Nxumalo was redeployed to the Ministry of Home Affairs as Deputy National Civil Registrar and was subsequently promoted to the position of National Civil Registrar in 2022 in the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Department.

In this position, he oversaw the operational and legislative reforms of the department, chief among which is the National Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Act, 2023, the implementation Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Strategic Plan 20222026 and the introduction of an Annual Work Plan.

Meanwhile, Andile Dlamini, a former Eswatini Observer Journalist was appointed the new Communications Officer for the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade.