A committee comprising family members, friends and members of the African National Congress (ANC) will be set up to plan the funeral of controversial KwaZulu-Natal MEC Dumisane Makhaye who died on Sunday.
In a statement, the ANC said it was saddened by the death of Makhaye, who was a member of the party’s national executive committee (NEC) and served on the provincial government as minister for housing, local government and traditional affairs.
Makhaye died of lung cancer in the Parklands hospital in Durban on Sunday morning.
In 2000, Makhaye, who was the KwaZulu-Natal housing minister, made headlines after it emerged that taxpayers were coughing up for his mansion, which he was renting for R22 500 a month.
A year later, he spent R164 000 on beefing up security at his private home.
Makhaye also evoked the wrath of the Freedom Front for apparently saying white farmers could only blame themselves if they were murdered.
In 2001, the Democratic Party also lodged a complaint against him with the Human Rights Commission. According to the party, Makhaye made offensive gestures while DP members were speaking in the legislature. Makhaye allegedly held his nose and waved in front of it as if he was smelling something bad while DP members had the floor. On one occasion while doing this, he allegedly said ”abelungu” (white people).
In a statement on Sunday, ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama described Makhaye as ”indeed a brave and a daring cadre of the ANC, loyal and uncompromising on matters of principle and organisational discipline”.
He said Makhaye had been both frank and receptive to new ideas.
He was ”a daring tiger of our revolution and one of the key strategists of the ANC”.
Makhaye was born on March 27 1955 in Cato Manor in KwaZulu-Natal.
He served as the ANC’s political head of communications in KwaZulu-Natal.
He was also a member of the party’s political education committee, as well as a member of the NEC sub-committees for communications, political education, and labour.
In 1976, he left South Africa for the People’s Republic of China where he joined Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) under the command of Joe Modise, Joe Slovo, Chris Hani and Cassius Maake.
He was then sent to study political science in Cuba for two years.
Makhaye underwent his military training in Germany, and became part of the special operations unit of MK command in KwaZulu-Natal. He later became a member of the KwaZulu-Natal MK Command.
He worked in the ANC’s department of information and publicity during the 1980s under the leadership of President Thabo Mbeki.
In 1991, after the unbanning of the ANC, Dumisani was elected into the executive committee of the ANC in southern KwaZUlu-Natal along with Jeff Radebe, Sbu Ndebele, Nkosazana Zuma, Diliza Mji, Mike Suttcliffe and Linda Zama. He completed a senior management programme with the University of Pretoria and at the time of his death he was in his final year of his bachelor of technology degree.
The Inkatha Freedom Party conveyed its condolences to Makhaye’s family, friends and the ANC on Sunday, saying ”may his soul rest in peace”.
IFP MP Vedlaphi Ndlovu said he would remember Makhaye as a ”political animal” who loved his party and didn’t care about other parties. – Sapa