Thembisile Ellen Nwedamutswu (; 17 December 1960 – 9 January 2015) was a South African politician and civil servant who served as Limpopo's Member of the Executive Council for Education from May 2014 until her death in January 2015. She was first elected to the

Limpopo Provincial Legislature The Limpopo Provincial Legislature is the primary legislative body of the South African province of Limpopo. It is unicameral in its composition, and elects the premier and the provincial cabinet, the Limpopo Executive Council, from among the ...

in the 2014 general election, which took place shortly after she was elected

Provincial Treasurer In Canadian politics the Provincial Treasurer is a senior portfolio in the Executive Council (or cabinet) of provincial governments. The position is the provincial equivalent of the Minister of Finance and is responsible for setting the provinc ...

of the Limpopo branch of the African National Congress. Before the 2014 election, she was chief executive officer of the Independent Development Trust for ten years, and she also formerly worked in national and provincial public administration.

Early life and career

Nwedamutswu was born on 17 December 1960 in

Swaziland Eswatini ( ; ss, eSwatini ), officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland ( ; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by Mozambique to its northeast and South Africa to its no ...

. She was the fourth child of Gilbert and Ntoni Mkhumane, who were South Africans from

Natal province The Province of Natal (), commonly called Natal, was a province of South Africa from May 1910 until May 1994. Its capital was Pietermaritzburg. During this period rural areas inhabited by the black African population of Natal were organized into ...

. She was educated in Swaziland and also spent time in Mozambique and Tanzania, where she was involved in activities of the exiled African National Congress (ANC), including as a manager at the

Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College The Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO), was an educational institution established by the exiled African National Congress (ANC) in 1978 at Mazimbu, Tanzania. It provided primary and secondary education to students who had fled South Afri ...

. She returned to South Africa in 1991. For two decades after the end of apartheid in 1994, she held various positions in public entities: she was director of human resource development at the Public Service Commission from 1995 to 1999, the head of the

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It ...

Department of Social Development from 1999 to 2000, and the Deputy Director-General of the national Department of Social Development from 2000 to 2003. In November 2003, she was appointed chief executive officer of the Independent Development Trust, a national development agency.

Political career

Nwedamutswu remained a member of the ANC and, at a party elective conference in February 2014, she was elected to a four-year term as

of the ANC's Limpopo branch, serving under newly elected Provincial Chairperson Stan Mathabatha. Later that year, she left the Independent Development Trust ahead of the 2014 general election, in which she was elected to the

, ranked 21st on the ANC's provincial

party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...

. After the election, Mathabatha, in his capacity as

Premier of Limpopo The Premier of Limpopo is the head of government of Limpopo province of South Africa. The current Premier of Limpopo is Stanley Mathabatha, a member of the African National Congress, who was appointed in July 2013. He took office on 18 July 201 ...

, appointed Nwendamutswu to the

Limpopo Executive Council The Executive Council (South Africa), Executive Council of Limpopo is the cabinet of the executive branch of the Provincial governments of South Africa, provincial government in the South African Provinces of South Africa, province of Limpopo. T ...

as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Education.

Personal life and death

She was married to Mamabolo Nwedamutswu, whom she met when he joined Umkhonto weSizwe in exile in Swaziland. They had four children together – Manu, Mpile, Leko, and Aluwani – and grandchildren. On 9 January 2015, she died in hospital in Pretoria after a brief illness. Zweli Mkhize and national ministers Angie Motshekga and

Edna Molewa Edna or EDNA may refer to: Places United States *Edna, California, a census-designated place *Edna Lake, Idaho *Edna, Iowa, an unincorporated town in Lyon County * Edna Township, Cass County, Iowa *Edna, Kansas, a city *Edna, Kentucky, an unin ...

were among those who spoke at her funeral.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nwedamutswu, Thembi 1960 births 2015 deaths Members of the Limpopo Provincial Legislature African National Congress politicians