Peter Johannes "Piet" Welgemoed is a South African politician and businessman who was

Minister of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government agen ...

from 1991 to 1994 under President F. W. de Klerk. He represented the National Party in the

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible governme ...

and

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 repre ...

until 1996, when he resigned to pursue a career in business.

Education and early career

Welgemoed completed a doctorate in

transport economics Transport economics is a branch of economics founded in 1959 by American economist John R. Meyer that deals with the allocation of resources within the transport sector. It has strong links to civil engineering. Transport economics differs from ...

Rand Afrikaans University The Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) was a prominent South African institution of higher education and research that served the greater Johannesburg area and surroundings from 1967 to 2004. It has since merged with the Technikon Witwatersrand ...

in 1971. From 1974, he was a professor in the department of transportation economics at the university, where he was also director of the Research Centre for Physical Distribution and Transportation Studies. Welgemoed succeeded

Piet Koornhof Pieter G. J. Koornhof, (2 August 1925 – 12 November 2007) was a South African politician. As an apartheid-era National Party cabinet minister, he held various portfolios in the cabinets of B.J. Vorster and P.W. Botha, and was later ...

as the NP's representative in the Primrose constituency in the House of Assembly. Formerly a deputy minister, he was appointed to de Klerk's cabinet in April 1991, when he was named as Minister of Transport. Responsibility for Post and Telecommunications was added to his portfolio in 1992.

Post-apartheid career

In the 1994 general election, Welgemoed was elected to represent the NP in the new multi-racial National Assembly. He was also appointed as the party's shadow minister for transport. However, in 1996, he resigned from Parliament in order to take up what he described as an "exceptional private sector opportunity". In his subsequent corporate career, Welgemoed's position included the executive chairmanship of the Board of Market Power in South America, which he held from 1998; he was also a long-serving director at Comair until he resigned from the board in December 2019.

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century South African politicians National Party (South Africa) politicians Members of the National Assembly of South Africa Members of the House of Assembly (South Africa) Transport ministers of South Africa {{DEFAULTSORT:Welgemoed, Piet