23 Facts About Joyce Mashamba

Happy Joyce Mashamba was a South African politician and veteran of the African National Congress.

Joyce Mashamba was a member of the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party and a former member of the ANC National Executive Committee and the ANC Women's League National Executive Committee.

Joyce Mashamba served as MEC in six different portfolios under each of the first five Premiers of Limpopo and became the province's longest-serving MEC.

Joyce Mashamba was briefly Deputy Speaker of the Limpopo Provincial Legislature from 2012 to 2013.

Joyce Mashamba was born on 25 September 1950 in Mulamula, a small village in Malamulele in what was then the Northern Transvaal.

Joyce Mashamba matriculated in 1975 and the following year became Assistant Librarian at the University of the North, where her husband, George, was a philosophy lecturer and Master's student.

Joyce Mashamba was a founding member of the Mankweng Civic Association and served on its first executive committee.

Joyce Mashamba was recruited during a meeting in Swaziland with the leaders of the ANC's Swaziland unit, including Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki, who persuaded Mashamba and her husband to set up an underground ANC cell on the other side of the border in South Africa.

Joyce Mashamba was implicated in reconnaissance for the ANC: prosecutors alleged that she had gathered strategic information for the ANC about police stations and military camps in the Transvaal.

In February 1977, Joyce Mashamba was convicted and sentenced to five years' imprisonment; her husband and Ndebele were sentenced to ten years on Robben Island.

Joyce Mashamba was the national organiser for the Federation of Transvaal Women from 1985.

Joyce Mashamba was active in the Northern Transvaal regional branch of the Women's League, and she was elected the branch's chairperson in 1991 and its deputy chairperson in 1992.

Joyce Mashamba was housekeeper at one of the student residences at Wits from 1989 to 1990; a bursary consultant at World University Service from 1990 to 1991; and assistant registrar in the financial aid office of the University of the North from 1991 to 1994.

Joyce Mashamba held the seat as an ANC representative until 1997, when she was appointed chief executive officer of the Northern Training Trust.

Joyce Mashamba's portfolios were Sports, Arts and Culture, Education, Finance, Safety, Security and Liaison, Social Development, and Agriculture and Rural Development.

In 2018, SABC News said that Joyce Mashamba was Limpopo's longest-serving MEC.

Joyce Mashamba was elected as a member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Women's League in 1999 and was re-elected to her seat in 2003 and 2008.

Joyce Mashamba ascended through the ranks of the ANC itself.

Joyce Mashamba was elected to the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC in Limpopo for the first time in 1998, and she subsequently served two terms as Deputy Provincial Chairperson of the ANC in Limpopo from 2002 to 2008.

Finally, although membership of the South African Communist Party is typically secret, the SACP said in 2018 that Joyce Mashamba was a "long-standing" member; she was elected to the SACP Central Committee in 2007 and remained a member when she died, having been re-elected in 2012 and 2017.

Joyce Mashamba died on 20 June 2018 after a long illness.

Joyce Mashamba was Limpopo MEC for Agriculture and Rural Development at the time of her death and was replaced by Basikopo Makamu in July 2018.

Joyce Mashamba was married to George Joyce Mashamba, who was arrested with her in 1976 and who served in the Limpopo Provincial Legislature and on the SACP Central Committee.