President Cyril Ramaphosa has offered his condolences to the family and friends of Membathisi Mdladlana, the former minister of labour and high commissioner to Canada, who died on Friday. He was 72.
The presidency said Mdladlana, a teacher by training and former school principal, became a member of South Africa’s first democratic parliament in 1994.
Four years later, he was appointed labour minister by President Nelson Mandela and was retained in this role by presidents Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma.
“Membathisi Mdladlana’s passing is a loss to his family and friends as much as it is to the nation. While we may try to prepare ourselves for the inevitability of such a loss, bereavement is never easy.
“We have recently been visited by a succession of departures of veterans of our liberation struggle and pioneers of the dawn of our democracy,” Ramaphosa said.
Mdladlana was one such pioneer, he said, as a first-generation MP who had been prepared for this role during an extended period of leadership in the South Western African Teachers Association, the Peninsula African Teachers Association and the Cape African Teachers Union before becoming a founding member and chairperson of the South African Democratic Teachers Union.
“He provided leadership in this strategic sector of our struggle at a time of great repression by the state and growing resistance by the people,” Ramaphosa said.
TimesLIVE
Ramaphosa mourns former labour minister Membathisi Mdladlana
Founding member of Sadtu and first-generation MP served under several presidents
Image: Supplied
President Cyril Ramaphosa has offered his condolences to the family and friends of Membathisi Mdladlana, the former minister of labour and high commissioner to Canada, who died on Friday. He was 72.
The presidency said Mdladlana, a teacher by training and former school principal, became a member of South Africa’s first democratic parliament in 1994.
Four years later, he was appointed labour minister by President Nelson Mandela and was retained in this role by presidents Thabo Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma.
“Membathisi Mdladlana’s passing is a loss to his family and friends as much as it is to the nation. While we may try to prepare ourselves for the inevitability of such a loss, bereavement is never easy.
“We have recently been visited by a succession of departures of veterans of our liberation struggle and pioneers of the dawn of our democracy,” Ramaphosa said.
Mdladlana was one such pioneer, he said, as a first-generation MP who had been prepared for this role during an extended period of leadership in the South Western African Teachers Association, the Peninsula African Teachers Association and the Cape African Teachers Union before becoming a founding member and chairperson of the South African Democratic Teachers Union.
“He provided leadership in this strategic sector of our struggle at a time of great repression by the state and growing resistance by the people,” Ramaphosa said.
TimesLIVE
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