Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who was appointed as the new deputy president on Wednesday, is known as the architect of the empowerment charter that is transforming South Africa’s mining industry.
As Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs, Mlambo-Ngcuka (49) received wide praise for the Mining Charter, that calls for 26% of South Africa’s mines to be owned by black-run companies by 2014.
President Thabo Mbeki described the approval of the charter by his Cabinet in 2002 as ”one of the brightest days in the history of our transformation”.
Mlambo-Ngucka was praised for soothing the concerns investors had about the charter.
She was also credited with putting the question of renewable energy on the national agenda and setting in motion the search for cleaner and cheaper sources of energy.
But Mlambo-Ngcuka has also come to know controversy in recent months.
In March she raised the ire of opposition political parties when she said elections held in Zimbabwe were free, fair and credible, despite allegations of vote rigging.
”The process was credible. It reflects the will of the people of Zimbabwe,” Mlambo-Ngcuka, who was head of the Southern African Development Community’s Zimbabwe election observer mission, said at the time.
Mlambo-Ngucka was appointed after the axing of former Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who is due to be charged next week on two counts of corruption.
Her husband Bulelani Ngcuka, the former head of the National Prosecuting Authority, said in August 2003 that there was a prima facie case against Zuma, but that it would be impossible to win the case.
Mlambo-Ngcuka has had to face a barrage of questions in the past weeks about an alleged R50 000 loan that her brother Bonga Mlambo received from an empowerment company, Imvume Investments.
Mlambo is said to have been involved in a tourism-related business which tried to bid for a hotel at St Lucia in KwaZulu-Natal with Imvume’s chief executive, Sandi Majali.
”Their businesses are not in the ambit of minerals and energy,” the mineral and energy affairs department’s director-general, Sandile Nogxina, said.
Mlambo-Ngcuka, who was born on November 3, 1955, passed a bachelor of arts degree in social science and education from the national University of Lesotho in 1980 before working as a teacher in KwaZulu-Natal from 1981 to 1983.
She was a founder member and director of the Young Womens International Programme at the Young Women Christian Association in Geneva, working on global youth development issues from 1984 to 1987.
It was in Switzerland that she met her future husband, Bulelani Ngcuka, who was working at the equality of human rights branch of the International Labour Organisation in Geneva.
The couple married and now have a son named Luyolo.
Mlambo-Ngcuka returned to South Africa and was the director of a developmental non government organisation in Cape Town from 1987 to 1989.
From 1990 to 1992 she was the director of World University Services, a funding agency.
In 1993 she started her own management consulting company, Phumelela Services.
After South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, Mlambo-Ngcuka became a member of Parliament and chairperson of the Public Service Portfolio Committee.
She was named Deputy Trade and Industry Minister in 1996, a position she held until 1999, when she was appointed Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs.
In 1997 she became a member of the African National Congress’ decision making National Executive Committee.
She attained her masters degree in philosophy degree in educational planning and policy in 2003 and was the Acting Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology from February 2004 to the end of April 2004.
Her appointment has been welcomed by business and opposition parties.
”We believe that the president is rewarding competence and delivery, but he is also rewarding inventiveness and innovation in that [she] was the very first minister who chartered the way around broad-based black economic empowerment,” Business Unity SA chief executive Bheki Sibiya said.
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille said her party was delighted in Mlambo-Ngcuka’s appointment.
”I hope that my sister will shake down some of these non-performing male ministers,” she said.
”After all we women can multi-task, hopefully she can perform where those before her have failed.”
In principle the appointment is a bold and gender-friendly move, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said after the announcment.
He said that on a personal level the new deputy president was a woman of ability and charm.
However, from a political and moral perception, her appointment undermined the good work Mbeki did last week when he took the very difficult decision to dismiss Zuma, he said.
He said there are a number of questions — some of them serious and all of them unanswered — which hung over the head of the new Deputy President.
”First, the unfolding Oilgate scandal involves one of South Africa’s largest parastatals, PetroSA, which falls directly under the department for which she was responsible in her capacity as Minister of Minerals and Energy.
”Second, according to available information, it appears that Mrs Mlambo-Ngcuka’s brother, Bonga Mlambo, benefited to the tune of R50 000 from PetroSA’s relationship with Imvume.
”This allegation and any knowledge the new deputy president may have had of the transaction have yet to be acknowledged or even investigated. She is both the state and the SA taxpayers’ representative on PetroSA, and her lack of action and candour are deeply troubling.
”Third, and of deep significance, is the fact that Mrs Mlambo-Ngcuka is married to former National Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka, the man who found that there was a prima facie case of corruption against Jacob Zuma in 2003.
”The fact that Zuma has now been replaced by Mlambo-Ngcuka because of this same corruption case could cause the impression that Ngcuka and the president might well have had an agenda outside of strictly legal concerns,” Leon said.
He said that at a ministerial level, she has worked hard to introduce some positive steps towards the liberalisation of the petroleum industry, but the implementation of the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act exposed the government to billions of rands in possible international lawsuits. – Sapa