Taking the party forward
OSCAR MABUYANE, who was elected as ANC provincial chairman last weekend, was barely four years old when he had to herd cattle and sheep at Deberha Village in Engcobo.
The friends he looked after those hundreds of sheep and cattle with at the time remain his best friends, despite them being called Amaqaba (never been to school).
“Whenever I feel down and out, I pack my bags and go home to Deberha. Among their demands during my visits is that I must buy them tobacco so once I’m home, we chat and have a good laugh for old times’ sake. It’s so reviving. Within a day or two, I am ready to go back to East London, and deal with city life,” he said while seated on his brown leather sofa at his family home in East London.
This is the home he shares with his family of five – wife Siya and their three boys aged eight to 14 years. Born to a mine labourer father and housewife mother, he was the first of five siblings to study further than matric.
It was in matric that Mabuyane showed that he was in a league of his own, passing his finals with flying colours despite there being no science lab to conduct experiments at his high school in Sharpville.
He had left his family home to join his father in Carltonville so that he could get odd jobs in Johannesburg. He was forced to take a twoyear “gap year” after matriculating with exemption in 1995, as his family could not afford to send him to university.
His big break came when a neighbour, Tholamahashe, offered him R5 000 to further his studies. His first choice was the University of Transkei, but another concerned neighbour advised “Diya”, as he is affectionately known, to go to Fort Hare instead. He only had R600 extra in his pocket to buy toiletries, money he had saved from teaching the elderly to read and write. He was 22 when he registered for his BCom in 1997.
It was in Alice where he realised his passion to help the needy, after being elected to the Student Representative Council (SRC) as president. This was after they had launched a programme to help needy but academically sound students.
At least 18 students benefited from the programme as Mabuyane and his executive helped in changing the university policy to convert students’ budget for entertainment into a bursary fund. “We now have a science lecturer as one of the beneficiaries of this programme.”
It was Economic Affairs MEC Enoch Godongwana who headhunted Mabuyane immediately after he graduated with a BCom in Economics, to work as a chief-ofstaff in his office in Bhisho. Godongwana was then MEC of Tourism, Economic Affairs and Finance. Mabuyane said the salary had helped him provide for his now widowed mother. This was after his father passed away in 1994.
“Not only was I a breadwinner of my family in Deberha but I was also a bread winner of my maternal family in Engcobo.
“If there is a funeral in either home, I have to be there and give direction.
“I can safely say I am a breadwinner of three families as we speak, my own here in East London, and the two others.”
He said he accepted all these responsibilities with a very positive vibe, because after graduating from initiation school he had received a new name, Philangenjongo, which means living purposefully.
“I take every challenge as a purpose for my living. I am following my names sake,” he said with a laugh.
He lived purposefully even when the political landscape turned against him in 2005. The ANC had replaced Makhenkesi Stofile with Nosimo Balindlela as premier. This was after Balindlela appointed Andre De Wet as MEC Economic Affairs and Tourism, a juggling act which saw Mabuyane’s job being rendered defunct. He was busy with lobola negotiations with his in-laws when on July 17, 2005 the then Economic Affairs MEC slapped him with a letter “informing me that he has to
get rid of me because my position was a political appointment. Everything collapsed, because this happened six months before my planned wedding in December,” Mabuyane said.
“But as Philangenjongo I had to make ends meet and pay off lobola and continue with my wedding as planned,” he said. It was all thanks to a company he, along with his Fort Hare comrades, had registered to do business so as to raise funds for needy students. “It was defunct, but I had to breathe life to Ikamva and find jobs to pay off lobola. The rest is history,” he said.
In his 12-year marriage Mabuyane has been blessed with three boys. He runs out of words when asked to share memories of his time with his boys, saying: “Those gatherings are always disrupted by political assignments unfortunately”.
He said while he has total control over his political programme, and makes time to intervene in each and every case which is reported to him, his wife takes control of 99% of the responsibilities at home because he’s always busy with his political work.
“If I’m needed at home even in Engcobo, she makes the decisions on my behalf,” he said.
He said he is also the softer of the two. “Once my boys know that there’s a report from school in their message books, they run to me and ask me to help them with their home work. I’ve realised that they come to ask for help when they know they have done wrong and that I won't bother to follow up on the matter,” said Mabuyane, adding that given an option, he would find time to spend with his boys.
It was in 2008 when the ANC Youth League elected Mabuyane as deputy provincial chairman to Mlibo Qoboshiyane. He was second in command when the pair joined forces with Phumulo Masualle, who was contesting against Mcebisi Jonas as provincial chairman of the ANC in the province. On the eve of the conference, “some comrades came to me, saying they want me to contest as provincial secretary. I was shocked because I was still fairly young. But after consulting some of my comrades, I accepted the nomination. The rest is history,” he said. Phumulo won the River park conference, and Mabuyane was one of the youngest ANC secretaries, after Bongani Gxilishe, who was also elected the ANC’s first provincial secretary after un-banning of the ANC in 1990. The conference was held on the eve of the 2011 local elections, which saw ANC members revolting against the nomination of candidates across regions, challenges of which Mabuyane, by virtue of being a full-time ANC official, took the fall for. This resulted in a physical attack by some ANC members, where he sustained severe back injuries, for which he is still consulting a specialist in Cape Town. But as his name Philangenjongo suggests, he accepted his nomination to stand and serve as provincial secretary and won in June 2013. Again this year, when his comrades told him he was ready to be provincial chairman, he accepted the nomination – beating his longtime ally Masualle with 935 votes against seven, after Masualle and his supporters walked out of the violence ridden conference. This was after he also had a bottle of water thrown at him and was advised to leave the conference venue, before national executive committee members gave the meeting the go ahead. Subsequently, Mabuyane was elected provincial chairman. Whether he will retain his position or not is now in the hands of the ANC NEC to decide. From where he is sitting, he said everyone was welcome back to the ANC, because “there is no such thing as disgruntled ANC members. Once you stop being A PEC member, you remain a branch member. The problem is we are faced with members who want to be members of other members such that when you realise that Mabuyane is not happy within the ANC and leaves, you also leave the party. “All we need to do going forward is to educate these ANC members to liberate them from being members of other members. That is the only cure for such illness,” said Mabuyane.