1. Zola Sidney Themba Skweyiya OLS was a South African politician who was Minister of Public Service and Administration from 1994 to 1999 and Minister of Social Development from 1999 to 2009.
16 Facts About Zola Skweyiya
1. 2.
Zola Skweyiya was born in Simon's Town, Western Cape, in 1942.
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Zola Skweyiya completed high school in Alice, Eastern Cape, at Lovedale College.
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Zola Skweyiya left South Africa in 1963, joining the ANC in exile in Tanzania and Zambia.
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Zola Skweyiya furthered his education in East Germany, where he studied law from 1969, and obtained a PhD ten years later.
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Until 1985, Zola Skweyiya was the ANC's representative at the Organisation of African Unity, before being recalled to Lusaka to set up the ANC's Legal and Constitutional Department.
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Zola Skweyiya helped to set up the Centre for Development Studies and the South African Legal Defence Fund, both at the University of the Western Cape.
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Zola Skweyiya served on the board of trustees of the National Commission for the Rights of Children.
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Zola Skweyiya was elected as president of UNESCO's Management of Social Transformations.
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Zola Skweyiya was first elected to Parliament in 1994, and he joined the Cabinet as Minister of Public Service and Administration in the same year.
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Zola Skweyiya was moved to the position of Minister of Social Development under President Thabo Mbeki in 1999.
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Zola Skweyiya is credited with the creation of the South African Social Security Agency, launched on 1 April 2006, aiming to address corruption and maladministration in the social grants payments system.
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Zola Skweyiya did not leave politics altogether, however; he remained a member of the ANC National Executive Committee, and on 7 May 2009 the party announced that he would have a new post working at the ANC Presidency.
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Zola Skweyiya praised Skweyiya's "immense skill and expertise" and said that the ANC still wanted to make use of his abilities.
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Zola Skweyiya was appointed by President Jacob Zuma as the South African High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in September 2009.
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Zola Skweyiya died at a Pretoria hospital on 11 April 2018, at the age of 75, leaving behind his second wife, Thuthukile, and two stepchildren, and a son from his first marriage.