Radhakrishna Lutchmana "Roy" Padayachie was a South African politician and activist.
24 Facts About Roy Padayachie
1.
2.
Roy Padayachie was a cabinet minister between November 2010 and his death in May 2012.
3.
Roy Padayachie joined the National Assembly in the April 2004 general election and served as Deputy Minister of Communications until May 2009 under Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe.
4.
Roy Padayachie was Minister of Communications from November 2010 to October 2011 and then was Minister of Public Service and Administration from October 2011 to May 2012.
5.
Roy Padayachie died in office on an official visit to Addis Ababa.
6.
Roy Padayachie was born on 1 May 1950 in Clairwood on the outskirts of Durban in the former Natal Province.
7.
Roy Padayachie's great-grandfather was a Tamil emigrant from the village of Ooramangalam near Chennai; his grandparents were born in Mauritius and his parents in South Africa.
8.
Roy Padayachie later completed a Master of Science at the University of London.
9.
Between 1974 and 1980, Roy Padayachie worked as a chemist: he was a formulations chemist at paint company Plascon Evans until 1976, then a microbiologist at Reckitt and Colman until 1979, and finally a research chemist at Shell Chemical until 1980.
10.
Roy Padayachie joined the underground of the African National Congress in 1972.
11.
Roy Padayachie was active in the Housing Action Committee in Chatsworth and the Residents' Association in Croftdene, and after the United Democratic Front was formed in 1983 he joined its provincial executive committee in Natal.
12.
Roy Padayachie continued that business until he was appointed to government in 2004.
13.
Roy Padayachie served in the deputy ministerial portfolio throughout the Third Parliament, gaining re-appointment when Kgalema Motlanthe replaced Mbeki in a midterm presidential election.
14.
Roy Padayachie was re-elected to the National Assembly in the April 2009 general election.
15.
Roy Padayachie was in the Ministry of Public Service and Administration for less than two years before Zuma promoted him to the cabinet in a reshuffle on 31 October 2010.
16.
Roy Padayachie replaced Siphiwe Nyanda as Minister of Communications, with Obed Bapela as his deputy.
17.
In July 2011, Roy Padayachie was accused of undue political interference in the governance of the SABC after he called a shareholders' meeting to encourage the board to amend the SABC's articles of association.
18.
Roy Padayachie said that the intervention was not intended to facilitate Molefe's appointment but conversely was intended to give the board greater discretion in choosing among potential candidates for the top job.
19.
In September 2018, in a front-page story, the Sunday Times printed the hypothesis that Roy Padayachie had been appointed to the Ministry of Communications in order to facilitate the Guptas' access to the communications sector, particularly the SABC.
20.
Roy Padayachie was appointed as Minister of Public Service and Administration, replacing his former boss, Richard Baloyi.
21.
On 4 May 2012, Roy Padayachie died of a heart attack in a hotel room in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
22.
Roy Padayachie had been in Ethiopia on official business, attending a high-level meeting on the African Peer Review Mechanism.
23.
Roy Padayachie's remains were cremated at Clare Estate in Durban.
24.
Roy Padayachie was married to Sally Padayachie, whom he had spoken to on the telephone shortly before his death, and he had two daughters.