Dikgang "Uhuru" Moiloa is a South African politician who was

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

Member of the Executive Council In South Africa, the Executive Council of a province is the cabinet of the provincial government. The Executive Council consists of the Premier and five to ten other members,''Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996'', Chapter 6: "Pro ...

(MEC) for Local Government and Human Settlements from March 2018 to May 2019. He represented the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when ...

in the

Gauteng Provincial Legislature The Gauteng Provincial Legislature is the legislature of the South African province of Gauteng. It is a unicameral body of 73 members elected every five years. The current legislature, the sixth, was elected on 8 May 2019 and has an African Natio ...

from 1999 to 2019 and was formerly the

Deputy Speaker The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England. Usage The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hungerf ...

in the legislature from 2014 to 2018.

Early life and activism

Moiloa grew up in

Dinokana Dinokana is a town in Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality in the North West province of South Africa. Early settlement The area became the main town of the Bahurutshe in 1849, when Kgosi Moiloa I settled it with about 1,500 people, who h ...

, a region in the former

Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal. * South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...

which was part of the

Bophuthatswana Bophuthatswana (, meaning "gathering of the Tswana people"), officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana ( tn, Riphaboliki ya Bophuthatswana; af, Republiek van Bophuthatswana), was a Bantustan (also known as "Homeland"; an area set aside for mem ...

bantustan during

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

until it was incorporated into the

North West province North West is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Mahikeng. The province is located to the west of the major population centre of Gauteng and south of Botswana. History North West was incorporated after the end of Apartheid in 1994, an ...

after 1994. He attended Dinokana Secondary School and said that the turning point of his political life was a lecture given at the school by anti-apartheid activist Onkgopotse Tiro. Moiloa was active in a local students' association while in high school. In December 1977, in the aftermath of the 1976 Soweto uprising and Bophuthatswana's declaration of independence, he left Dinokana for

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

in present-day

Gauteng province Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only 1. ...

. He subsequently became active in the

anti-apartheid movement The Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM), was a British organisation that was at the centre of the international movement opposing the South African apartheid system and supporting South Africa's non-White population who were persecuted by the policie ...

, including as a founding member of the

Congress of South African Students The Congress of South African Students (COSAS) is an anti-apartheid Student Organisation established in 1979 in the wake of the June 16 Soweto Uprisings in 1976 in South Africa. Background COSAS was formed in June 1979 after the South African Stu ...

in 1979, and he was arrested and trialled by the apartheid government for participating in a march in honour of activist

Solomon Mahlangu Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu (10 July 1956 – 6 April 1979) was a South African freedom fighter, struggle activist and operative of the African National Congress (ANC) militant wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). He was convicted of murd ...

. After his release, in the 1980s, he joined the

(ANC) underground.

Career in provincial government

Moiloa was first elected to the

in 1999. He chaired several of the legislature's committees and at one stage was Chairperson of Committees ("Chair of Chairs") in the legislature. Pursuant to the 2014 general election, he was re-elected to his legislative seat, ranked 24th 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 ...

, and was also elected unopposed as Deputy Speaker of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature. In that capacity he deputised

Ntombi Mekgwe Ntombi Lentheng Mekgwe is a South African politician who has been Speaker of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature since 2014. Before that, she was a Member of the Executive Council (MEC) in the Gauteng provincial government from 2010 to 2014 and th ...

. While in the legislature, Moiloa also rose through the ranks of the ANC's regional branch in the

West Rand The West Rand is the name of the urban western part of the Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation. This area became settled by Europeans after a gold-bearing reef discovered in 1886 and sparked the gold ...

and then of its provincial branch in Gauteng. He was a member of the Gauteng ANC's Provincial Executive Committee from 2008 until 2018. He left the Deputy Speaker's office in March 2018, when

David Makhura Manemolla David Makhura (born 22 February 1968) is a South African politician. He served as the 6th Premier of Gauteng following his election in 2014 until his resignation in October 2022. He was also a member of the Member of the Gauteng Provin ...

, the

Premier of Gauteng The Premier of Gauteng is the head of government of the Gauteng province of South Africa. The current Premier of Gauteng is Panyaza Lesufi, a member of the African National Congress, who was elected on 6 October 2022, following the resignation o ...

, appointed him to the

Gauteng Executive Council The Executive Council of Gauteng is the cabinet of the executive branch of the provincial government in the South African province of Gauteng. The Members of the Executive Council (MECs) are appointed from among the members of the Gauteng Prov ...

(MEC) for Local Government and Human Settlements. He succeeded

Paul Mashatile Paul Shipokosa Mashatile (born 21 October 1961) is a South African politician who is currently the Deputy President of the governing African National Congress (ANC). Before his election to that position in December 2022, he was ANC Treasurer Ge ...

, who had been elected to a full-time party office as ANC Treasurer-General. Moiloa's early tenure in the Executive Council was marked by widespread service delivery protests related to housing shortages in Gauteng. He was responsible for the portfolio until the 2019 general election, when he did not stand for re-election to the provincial legislature and was succeeded as MEC by Lebogang Maile, who took over the reconfigured portfolio of Human Settlements, Urban Planning, and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. Instead, Moiloa ran for election to a seat 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 repre ...

, ranked 182nd on the ANC's national party list. He was not elected to a seat.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Moiloa, Uhuru People from Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipality Living people African National Congress politicians Members of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature 21st-century South African politicians Year of birth missing (living people)