Lance William Greyling (born 14 June 1973) is a South African politician and civil servant who served in the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the r ...

from 1999 to 2015. He was the chief whip of the

Independent Democrats The Independent Democrats (ID) was a South African political party, formed by former Pan Africanist Congress member Patricia de Lille in 2003 via floor crossing legislation. The party's platform was premised on opposition to corruption, with ...

(ID) until 2014, when the party merged with the Democratic Alliance (DA). He also served as Shadow Minister of Energy under Opposition Leader

Lindiwe Mazibuko Lindiwe Mazibuko (born 9 April 1980) is a Swazi-born South African academic, former politician, musician and the former leader of the Official Opposition Democratic Alliance (DA). She was elected DA Parliamentary Leader on 27 October 2011, be ...

from 2012 to 2014. Though Greyling was re-elected to his seat under the DA banner in 2014, he resigned in 2015 to work in the office of the

Mayor of Cape Town The Mayor of Cape Town is the head of the local government of Cape Town, South Africa; currently that government takes the form of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. In the past, the position of Mayor has varied between that of an ...

Early life and career

Greyling was born on 14 June 1973. He has a bachelor's and

honours degree Honours degree has various meanings in the context of different degrees and education systems. Most commonly it refers to a variant of the undergraduate bachelor's degree containing a larger volume of material or a higher standard of study, or ...

from the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

, completed in 1996. Before entering politics, he was a manager at the GLOBE Project, where his job was equipping parliamentarians in South Africa to deal with environment and

sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...

issues.

Legislative career

Independent Democrats: 2004–2014

In the 2004 general election, Greyling was elected to represent the ID in the National Assembly. He was re-elected to a second term in

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

. He was the ID's chief whip, and he also spearheaded the ID's push to regulate the funding of political parties. In 2011, a parliamentary committee set aside a party funding bill proposed by Greyling, deciding, controversially, that it would be unconstitutional. In addition, Greyling served as the ID's spokesperson on

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...

. In 2008, he and two other MPs – Gareth Morgan of the DA and Ruth Rabinowitz of the

Inkatha Freedom Party The Inkatha Freedom Party ( zu, IQembu leNkatha yeNkululeko, IFP) is a right-wing political party in South Africa. The party has been led by Velenkosini Hlabisa since the party's 2019 National General Conference. Mangosuthu Buthelezi founded t ...

– formed a non-partisan parliamentary lobby group, e-Parliament Renewable Energy Activists, to advocate for legislation on a transition to

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

. In this capacity, Greyling supported a private member's bill on

feed-in tariffs A feed-in tariff (FIT, FiT, standard offer contract,Couture, T., Cory, K., Kreycik, C., Williams, E., (2010)Policymaker's Guide to Feed-in Tariff Policy Design National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy advanced renewable tariff, ...

, introduced by Rabinowitz. In February 2012, DA leader Lindiwe Mazibuko appointed Greyling as Shadow Minister of Energy; the ID had by then entered into cooperation with the DA, with a merger planned.

Democratic Alliance: 2014–2015

The ID disbanded in the 2014 general election and Greyling, along with other former ID members, formally joined the DA. He was re-elected to his legislative seat under the DA banner. However, less than a year into the term, on 28 February 2015, he resigned from Parliament in order to become director for trade and investment in the office of the Mayor of Cape Town.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greyling, Lance Living people 1973 births 21st-century South African politicians 20th-century South African politicians Members of the National Assembly of South Africa South African civil servants Democratic Alliance (South Africa) politicians Independent Democrats (South Africa) politicians University of Cape Town alumni