Marianne Merten
Deputy justice minister Cheryl Gillwald was job-hunting when she heard the news of her appointment. She now laughs about it. When Gillwald realised she was not on the party list for re-election to Parliament she sent out her curriculum vitae. “I started job- hunting. I did quite a lot of hunting – I am a single parent. I have to work.”
When Gillwald returned to Cape Town after attending President Thabo Mbeki’s inauguration, there were 10 messages on her cellphone. Gillwald chuckles, saying she never gets that many calls.
The first one was from the secretary general of the African National Congress calling on behalf of the president. “When I heard that I thought it was a crank call and I wiped the number off,” she says.
But by the time she listened to the third message, it dawned on her it was real. “People talk about their knees giving way. I had to sit down.”
Over the past week Gillwald has been reading up furiously for her new portfolio, but the first taste of her office came when she opened up the first regional office of the public protector in Bisho a few days ago.
She is not certain what Minister of Justice Penuell Maduna wants her to concentrate on, and is waiting for his instructions. Indications are that she may be asked to concentrate on budgetary and financing aspects. She has served as an ANC MP on the parliamentary finance and public accounts committees, the ad hoc tender review committee, the joint standing committee on conditions of service of the public protector and the task team on banking affairs and interest rates. Gillwald says she would like to get involved in gender and juvenile issues.
She has a reputation for getting things done. Her strengths are administration, organisation and number crunching. She says: “I’m a slogger. I stick with something till it’s right.”
This is the kind of determination it will take to juggle the duties of being a deputy minister and a single parent of an 11-year- old boy. She has had a taste of what may come. After being sworn in she needed time off to attend meetings with teachers and care for her son after he broke an arm. “It is just juggling. In the end, that’s what it is. It is a frantic juggle and it doesn’t stop.”
Gillwald is determined to succeed and face challenges head on. The appointment of more women into high-level political office is a recognition of the very important role women play. “It’s extraordinary. When I first came to Parliament, I came from a very small town. My eyes were so widened by the strides that have been taken in the first round of Parliament,” Gillwald says.