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Mlambo-Ngcuka Takes a Giant Stride for Women of South Africa
By Hopewell Radebe and Razina Munshi
June 23, 2005 – (Business Day Johannesburg)
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has risen to higher political
office than any other woman in SA's history.
Gender Links director Colleen Lowe-Morna said yesterday
that Mlambo-Ngcuka's appointment was a "wake-up call"
to start taking account of the enormous, and often unacknowledged,
role of women in society.
Mlambo-Ngcuka was born in 1955 in Clermont township
in KwaZulu-Natal.
She joined the African National Congress while studying
at the National University of Lesotho, where she obtained a bachelor
of arts degree in social science and education in 1980. She became
a teacher in 1981.
In 1984 Mlambo-Ngcuka was appointed director of
the international programme at the Young Womens' Christian Association's
head office in Geneva.
She returned to SA in 1987, and worked in Cape Town
for nongovernmental organisations before starting a management consulting
company.
In 1994 Mlambo-Ngcuka became an MP and chaired
the public service portfolio committee.
She was appointed deputy trade and industry minister
in 1996, and became minerals and energy minister in 1999.
Mlambo-Ngcuka commands enormous respect in the South
African mining fraternity.
Under her leadership, the sector was the first to
produce an empowerment charter, with a defined transformation programme
and enforceable goals.
Other industries have since replicated her charter
programme, turning a simple idea into a national strategy.
But Mlambo-Ngcuka has not been free of controversy.
In 2002, she was criticised for purchasing a tiara
from a diamond merchant at a "startlingly low price".
She asked the public protector to investigate the
purchase, and then donated the tiara to an educational jewellery
project, despite being cleared of any wrongdoing.
She is married to Bulelani Ngcuka, former head of
the National Prosecuting Authority, who initiated the investigations
into Jacob Zuma and Schabir Shaik.
From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200506230021.html
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