Publications
Partners
Parks Tau does not appear to be your usual politician. But his unassuming appearance – thanks to his slight build and soft voice – is deceiving. Johannesburg’s mayor is a career politician who cut his teeth in student politics.
Tau (44) is a big advocate of the internet and social media for communication. He is a diligent user of Facebook and Twitter, the two platforms he uses to speak to the public. It is perhaps because of this that he is placing so much emphasis on providing free Wi-Fi all over the city to improve educational and economic activity among the youth.
In his offices in the Metro Centre in Braamfontein a day after he delivered his state of the city address, the tall young mayor strides into the boardroom with a welcoming smile.
Tau became mayor in 2011, taking over from Amos Masondo at the height of the city’s billing crisis, which he oversaw as the member of the mayoral committee heading the city’s finance department.
Today he is adamant the city has stabilised that situation.
It is quite the coincidence that he was born and raised in Orlando West, Soweto, the neighbourhood that protested en masse against prepaid electricity meters this past week.
Tau says he doesn’t believe his former neighbours should be allowed to pay a flat rate for electricity because that will lead to abuse.
“It was during my childhood that it was instilled in me that I must always take responsibility for my actions. My father would remind me that ‘everything you do will always come back to you’. These are the principles that stayed with me and I still apply them,” he says.
Tau has occupied many leadership positions, from students’ representative council president at Pace College in the 1980s to leading the Soweto Youth Congress at the age of 19. He was 24 when elected regional secretary of the ANC in Johannesburg and became chairperson of the city’s Urban Development Committee at 25.
He was elected to the City of Joburg’s council after the first democratic local government elections in 2000.
Looking back on the four years since he assumed the mayoral office, does he feel he has done enough?
“Yes,” he answers emphatically. “In fact, those who can’t see that Joburg is a city at work do not want to see it. Maybe they do not want to feel the more than 300km of roads that have been resurfaced all over the city.”
During his state of the city address, Tau acknowledged his wife, Philisiwe Twala-Tau, mother Ellen and sister Tilly, wishing them a happy Mother’s Day.
