/ 23 January 2008

Gomomo was ‘a true servant of the people’

John Gomomo, a former president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has died, the federation said.

Spokesperson Patrick Craven said Gomomo died on January 22.

Gomomo (62) was — at the time of his death — an African National Congress (ANC) MP and the chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on public service and administration.

The former Cosatu president fell ill late last year and was hospitalised at the Cuyler Hospital in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape earlier this month.

Craven said Gomomo led the labour federation from 1991 until 1999, when he stepped down to become an ANC MP. He was also the leader of the National Automobile and Allied Workers’ Union.

He participated in the formation of Cosatu and was credited as being among those who worked to grow the ANC’s popularity in Uitenhage during the apartheid era.

The ANC said it was with deep regret and a profound sense of loss that it learned of the death of Gomomo.

”Gomomo, a member of Parliament and a champion of worker rights, had been in hospital since last November. He had been ill for a while and was as a result unable to perform his tasks as chairperson of the portfolio committee on public service and administration,” secretary general Gwede Mantashe said.

Paying tribute to Gomomo, Mantashe said he distinguished himself as a leader of the trade-union movement, serving in a variety of leadership positions of Cosatu’s affiliate unions.

Mantashe said Gomomo’s commitment and loyalty to the cause of the mass democratic movement would forever be treasured by the ANC.

The ANC parliamentary caucus said it had learned with sadness of the death of Gomomo.

”Comrade Gomomo will be remembered as a true servant of the people, a disciplined and a selfless cadre of the movement,” the caucus said in a statement. — Sapa