Nomvula Mokonyane

Nomvula Mokonyane

Nomvula Paula Mokonyane (born June 28, 1963 in Kagiso , Transvaal Province , South Africa ) is a South African politician ( ANC and SACP ). Between 2009 and 2014 she was Prime Minister of the South African province of Gauteng . From 2014 she headed the Water Affairs and Sanitation department in the Zuma II cabinet of the South African government, and from 2018 she was Minister of Communication in the Ramaphosa I cabinet . From November 22, 2018, she served as Environment Minister under President Cyril Ramaphosa. With the formation of the government in 2019, she left the cabinet.

Life

youth

Nomvula Paula Mokonyane was born on June 28, 1963 in the township of Kagiso in what is now the South African province of Gauteng. She is the youngest of twelve children. Mokonyane attended Masupatsela High School in Kagiso.

First political engagement

Mokonyane began to get involved politically in the early 1980s. She joined the Young Christian Students (YCS) and was a founding member of the Congress of South African Students (Cosas). He was also involved in the Krugersdorp branch of the United Democratic Front and was an active member of the Federation of Transvaal Women (Fedtaw).

Because of her political involvement, she was regularly harassed by the security police. After the liberalization of the laws for civil society organizations in 1990, Mokonyane supported the re-establishment and development of the local party structures of the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SAPC).

Advancement in Gauteng Province

In 1994 Mokonyane ran for a seat in the “provincial parliament” of Gauteng and won. She worked on various committees before being appointed provincial minister for agriculture and the environment in 1996. She was Provincial Minister of Security from 1999 to 2004 and Minister of Housing from 2004 to 2009. She also rose within her party, the ANC: Mokonyane has been a member of the party's National Executive Committee since 2007 . As security minister, Monkonyane set up violence protection centers at police stations as well as advice and support centers for victims of sexual and domestic violence. It is also said to have played an important role in the fact that UNESCO named Sterkfontein a World Heritage Site in 1999 .

After the general election in 2009 , the ANC won Gauteng Province with 64 percent of the vote. The Executive Board of the ANC then determined Mokonyane to be Gauteng's first female Prime Minister (and South Africa at all), and she swore her oath on May 6, 2009. Under her aegis, she rebuilt the administration of the province and, among other things, introduced a planning department.

Appointment as Minister for Water and Wastewater

For the 2014 general election , Mokonyane was not nominated again by her party for the provincial government, although the ANC again gained an absolute majority with 53 percent of the vote. She was succeeded on May 20, 2014 by David Makhura. Instead, President Jacob Zuma (ANC) brought Mokonyane into his second cabinet , for which he created the new Ministry of Water Affairs and Sanitation . Mokonyane had no mandate in the national parliament - but the constitution allows up to two ministers without a mandate to be nominated for the cabinet.

In September 2016 it was announced that Mokonyane against the Lesotho government - without consulting President Jacob Zuma  as part of the - Lesotho Highlands Water Project have required a significantly increased amount of water for their country. This would have meant a rescheduling of future construction projects and thus a delay of several years. Critics saw in the plan of the minister to be able to favor own acquaintances with a renewed tender. In 2018 she was appointed Minister of Communications to his cabinet by President Cyril Ramaphosa and was appointed Minister of Environmental Affairs in November 2018.

She lost her ministerial office when the Ramaphosa II cabinet was formed .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Nomvula Paula Mokonyane. In: South African History Online. December 9, 2013, accessed December 8, 2016 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Nomvula Paula Mokonyane, Ms. Government Communication and Information System, accessed on December 8, 2016 (English). 
3. ↑ Nomvula misled Zuma. news24.com, September 4, 2016 (English); accessed on September 15, 2016
4. ^ Nomvula Mokonyane: New environmental minister has a history of failure . In: thesouthafrican.com . November 22, 2018. Retrieved November 22, 2018.