The Mail & Guardian’s Reporters take a look at some of the people who’ve been in the news – but whose fame has faded
Former arts and culture minister Ben Ngubane was plucked out of his efficient national ministry after the Inkatha Freedom Party’s July conference to bolster the party’s provincial stakes.
In keeping with his middle-ground approach, Ngubane has won support from both African National Congress and IFP legislators for his efforts to whip the KwaZ ulu-Natal Finance Ministry into shape. His zest to breathe new efficiency into the provincial government has, however, placed him at odds with the IFP’s old
guard: he has reportedly clashed with Premier Frank Mdlalose during Cabinet m
eetings, w ith the party’s elderly chairman viewing the young doctor as a bit of an upsta rt.
* Former state president PW Botha is still writing his memoirs in retirement i n Wilderness, near George, in the Western Cape. He is adamant he will not appl y for amnesty. However, he has decided to “co-operate” with the Truth and Reco nciliation Commission.
* Robert McBride, the man who escaped the hangman for bombing Magoo’s Bar, is employed at the Department of Foreign Affairs. While awaiting a diplomatic pos ting, he is working in the Asian Directorate as deputy director heading the su b-directorate in charge of South-East Asia. The countries falling under his au thority include Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma.
* Derek Keyes, former minister of finance, has become an executive director of the mining and construction company Gencor and head of its aluminium division
, which is its largest working division. He retired from the post of finance m inister in July 1994 but stayed on for another two months, overlapping with hi s successor, Chris Liebenberg..
He was appointed as chairman of Gencor’s off-shore company, Biliton, in Novemb er 1994.
During Gencor’s transformation process Biliton was integrated into Gencor and Keyes was appointed an excutive director during this period.
* Chris Liebenberg, who followed Derek Keyes into the finance ministry, also r eturned to the business arena after leaving his government post in April this year. Appointed to various directorships, he serves as deputy chairman of the Nedcor board. It is rumoured that Liebenberg is set to take over the chairmans hip early next year.
He is also chairman of Hoechst SA Limited and serves as a director of Mutual & Federal Insurance Company Limited and South African Mutual Life Assurance Soc
iety.
* The former Bophuthatswana president, Lucas Mangope, is the leader of the Uni ted Christian Democratic Party. He formed the party in September 1994 in time for local government elections in November last year, where his party came sec ond in the North-West province after the ANC, obtaining 6,5% of the vote in th e province.
He is expected to face fraud charges relating to mismanagement in his homeland totalling R18-million. Mangope spends his spare time at his farm near Zeerust
.
* Pik Botha says he is tired of the “secretive world” he has occupied for the past three decades. Once the longest-serving foreign minister in the world, th en – after May 1994 – minister for energy affairs until the National Party le ft the Government of National Unity earlier this year, he declares that “in th e foreseeable future I have no interest in the politics of this country. When major rest ructuring of the politics comes about, then, maybe, I can get involved.”
Botha acts as a consultant for foreign investors interested in South Africa an d local businesses intending to do business in other Southern African countrie s.
He is also on the board of three companies whose interests range from conferen ce centres to the import-export business.
* Former Gauteng IFP firebrand Themba Khoza has retained his seat in the provi ncial legislature despite earlier attempts by party moderates to shed leaders closely linked to the party’s warlord image, but he has faded from the politic al limelight in recent months.
He is sure to be spending some time contemplating whether to apply for amnesty in connection with countless gun-running allegations raised against him, or t
o take his chances with the criminal justice system.
*CHIEF Kaizer Matanzima, once ruler of the Transkei, is no longer interested i n party politics. This he declared to the Congress of Traditional Leaders of S outh Africa (Contralesa). He is reigning king of Western Thembuland and an ord inary member of Contralesa. Matanzima lives at Qamata Great Palace in Comfimva ba, in the Eastern Cape.
* The man who assassinated apartheid architect Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, Dimitrio T safendas (79), is at Sterkfontein Mental Hospital near Krugersdorp, to which h e was released after decades in Pretoria Central Prison. His doctor says he is “quite frail” and suffers from “cardiac complaints”. His mental state “has no
t changed. It is the same as it has always been.”
n Allan Boesak, former Western Cape MEC for Economic Affairs and United Nation s ambassador-designate, is living and working in the United States. He is lect uring at the American Baptist Seminary in Berkeley, California.
The former director of the Foundation for Peace and Justice has undertaken to return to South Africa in the new year to face fraud and theft charges relatin g to his alleged mishandling of foreign funding to the organisation.
* Freddie Steenkamp, former bookkeeper of the Foundation for Peace and Justice , is working as a salesman at a car dealership in Goodwood, Cape Town.
Steenkamp appeared in court in connection with nine counts of theft and fraud relating to the Foundation for Peace and Justice. He was not asked to plead an d the hearing was postponed to January 17.
* Veteran MP Helen Suzman refuses to retire from the busy life she became accu stomed to several decades ago. She is on the council of the University of the Witwatersrand and is a commissioner on the statutory Human Rights Commission. Suzman says she travels abroad regularly and her part-time jobs keeps her busi er than one can imagine.
“I’m still vertical, and I’m not in the rocking-chair. My late husband used to say ‘retirement is the kiss of death’.”
* Bantu Holomisa is out in the political wilderness after his expulsion from t he ANC. He is planning to form a political party but after much ado he has dro pped the court action against his expulsion, saying the victory would be “holl ow”.
“I’m just at home, resting, addressing rallies organised by ANC members” (who oppose his expulsion).
In the new year Holomisa will be preparing a “consultative conference” aimed a t bringing together people who feel the need for a new political movement.
* Former Civil Co-operation Bureau big-shot Staal Burger is now a sugar-cane f armer in Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal. The Cane Growers’ Association refused to sa y how involved he is in the business, but did say he is one of its valued memb ers.
* (Former) Mother of the Nation Winnie Madikizela-Mandela seems to have gone i nto political hibernation since her dismissal as deputy arts, culture, technol ogy and science minister and her divorce from the president.
She is now an ordinary MP, and has not been well lately – she suffers from sug ar diabetes.
Madikizela-Mandela is reportedly also involved in housing construction. She is a director of a new housing company, HBM, which is building houses in Phola P
ark squatter camp on the East Rand.
8 Former Malan trial accused Melchizedec ‘MZ’ Khumalo remained secure in his p ost as the IFP’s deputy secretary general throughout his trial on murder consp iracy charges relating to the 1987 KwaMakhutha massacre. Acquitted with his co -accused in October, Khumalo’s career appears not to have suffered from the t rial or his appearance in State Security Council documents as the alleged link -man betwe en the party and Military Intelligence. He is often at his desk in the party’s Albany Grove headquarters, and there appear to be no imminent moves to uproot
him.