What new MECs will offer
Political heads ready to prove their capabilities
PREMIER Phumulo Masualle this week announced a major shake-up to the provincial executive, roping in four new MECs who make their debut as political heads of provincial departments. The Saturday Dispatch takes a look at these new heads and what they have to offer:
● Xolile Nqatha: Rural Development and Agrarian Reform
Nqatha has, among other accolades on his CV, worked for nine years in the Department of Land Affairs as a researcher, two years in the non-governmental sector in South Africa as a community development facilitator and a development newsletter editor.
He also served as a provincial manager for Dora Tamana Co-operative Centre in the Eastern Cape office focusing on research, policy development and co-operative training from August 2005 to September 2009. He is currently a member of the Eastern Cape Legislature as chairman of the portfolio committee on finance and provincial expenditure and a member of Scopa, health and economic development committees.
Nqatha previously worked as an underground mineworker from 1985 to 1987 and as an assistant at Amatola Star Bakery from 1988 to 1989.
He describes his experience as one rooted in “communications and marketing, community development, local government transformation, local economic development, promotion of co-operatives, financial sector transformation, social and economic justice, and land and agrarian reform.”
His area of specialisation over the last three years has been on cooperatives and alternative economic transformation in line with the imperative of social and economic justice. A scholar in his own right, Nqatha is currently doing MPA (Masters in Public Administration) with the University of Fort Hare.
● Oscar Mabuyane: Finance Mabuyane took over the ANC provincial chairmanship last year, defeating Masualle in the East London ICC conference. It was in matric that Mabuyane showed that he was in a league of his own, passing his final exams with flying colours despite there being no science lab to conduct experiments at his high school in Sharpeville in Gauteng.
He left his family home in Ngcobo to join his father in Carltonville so that he could get odd jobs in Johannesburg. He was forced to take a two-year “gap year” after matriculating with exemption in 1995, as his family could not afford to send him to university. He was 22 when he enrolled for his BCom in Economics at the University of Fort Hare in 1997.
It was in Alice where he realised his passion for helping the needy, after being elected to the Student Representative Council as president. From graduating with his BCom in economics degree, then Economic Affairs MEC Enoch Godongwana head-hunted Mabuyane to work as a chief-of-staff in his office in Bhisho. Godongwana was then MEC of Tourism, Economic Affairs and Finance.
Mabuyane’s political star continued to shine in the ranks of the ANC Youth League until he was elevated to become the provincial secretary of the parent body in 2009, serving two terms before reaching the top last year as provincial chairman of the ANC.
● Mlungisi Mvoko: Human Settlements
This teacher by profession, who served in New Education South Africa, was instrumental in the establishment of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) in the 1990s. The 59-year-old Mvoko was elected the ANC regional chair in Sarah Baartman for a record-breaking three times in 2006, 2012 and 2015 before progressing into being the ANC deputy provincial chairman last year.
Born in Somerset East, Mvoko in 2000 traded teaching to be the mayor of Sarah Baartman, then Cacadu district, where he served two terms until 2011.
● Bulelwa Tunyiswa: Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture
Tunyiswa had been serving as the Bhisho legislature deputy speaker before her appointment as MEC. She was born in Middledrift in 1962 and matriculated from Nathaniel Pamla High School before graduating from the University of the Western Cape with her first degree.
She went on to complete her Master’s in Public Administration at UFH. She is a former teacher and Sadtu and Cosatu activist which is where she honed her political prowess. Tunyiswa is a former youth and student activist and communist of note who served in the SA Communist Party central committee for two terms.
At the legislature, she had also served as deputy chief whip of the ANC caucus, as whip responsible for the education portfolio committtee; as well as the women, youth and gender portfolio committee in Bhisho. —