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ANC veteran and former minister Zola Skweyiya has passed away at the age of 75, according to members of his family and senior ANC officials.
He passed away at Kloof Hospital in Erasmuskloof, Tshwane.
Skweyiya was first elected to Cabinet in 1994 when he served as minister of public service and administration from 1994 to 1999 and then took up the post of minister of social development from 1999 to 2009, where he served under president Thabo Mbeki’s Cabinet.
Skweyiya was born on April 14 1942 in Simon’s Town, and assisted in the struggle, after joining the ANC in 1956. He served as a prominent figure in the ANC, when he fought with other members against the apartheid regime.
During the time that Nelson Mandela was oversees receiving his military training, Skweyiya mobilised support for Umkhonto weSizwe.
He was exiled and returned from exile in 1990.
He was a member of the ANC negotiations commission and coordinator of the ANC civil service unit. He also assisted in setting up the Centre for Development Studies at the University of the Western Cape and the South African Legal Defence Fund.
Skweyiya has also been credited with the creation of the South African Social Security Agency, in which millions of people receive state grants.
In 2016, he added his voice to the growing calls for former president Jacob Zuma to resign, and in 2017 went so far as to call for Zuma’s arrest after the Supreme Court of Appeals had dismissed an appeal by the National Prosecuting Authority and President Jacob Zuma against a high court order which set aside the decision to withdraw charges against the president in October.
In 1997, Zola Skweyiya wrote the foreword to the white paper on transforming public service delivery. The white paper introduced the civil service to the Batho Pele principle, which puts the people of South Africa first.
“I want to turn words into action. I want the needs of our people to come first and be satisfied. I want people to view and experience the public service in an entirely new way,” he said.
