Zukisa Cheryl Faku (born 1965) is a South African politician and convicted fraudster from the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

. A member of 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 ...

, Faku had served as the mayor of the

Buffalo City Local Municipality Buffalo City is a metropolitan municipality situated on the east coast of Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. It includes the towns of East London, Bhisho and Qonce, as well as the large townships of Mdantsane and Zwelitsha. History The muni ...

. In 2013 she was elected to take up a seat in the

National Council of Provinces The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) is the upper house of the Parliament of South Africa under the (post-apartheid) constitution which came into full effect in 1997. It replaced the former Senate, but is very similar to that body, and to ma ...

. The following year, she was elected to the

National Assembly of South Africa The National Assembly is the directly elected house of the Parliament of South Africa, located in Cape Town, Western Cape. It consists of four hundred members who are elected every five years using a party-list proportional representation syste ...

. Faku was convicted of fraud in 2016 but remained a Member of Parliament. She resigned from parliament shortly after her re-election in 2019.

Early life

Faku was born in

Duncan Village Duncan Village is a township in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The township is located about five kilometres away from the East London city business district (CBD). Duncan Village is di ...

outside

East London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

in 1965. When she was five years old, she and her family were forced to relocate to the Mdantsane township due to the Group Areas Act instituted by the white minority government. She later trained to be a teacher and worked as one until she became involved in politics.

Political career

Faku was an ANC councillor and served as the mayor of the

until the 2011 municipal elections. In April 2013, Faku was selected to go to the

, the upper house of the South African parliament, to fill the casual vacancy that arose following the resignation of Siphiwo Mazosiwe. A year later, Faku was elected to the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, in that year's general elections. She was appointed to both the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and the Portfolio Committee on Energy, of which she was made

whip A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally e ...

. In March 2016, Faku was convicted on nine counts of fraud and theft‚ stemming from her tenure as mayor when she used her official municipal credit card for personal purchases while on business trips to Turkey and within South Africa in 2009. Faku maintained that she was unaware that she was not allowed to use the credit card for private purchases. In September, Faku was sentenced to three years of house arrest and community service at an old-age home in Cambridge. The ANC welcomed her sentencing with ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu saying that Faku could no longer continue serving as an MP because of her criminal conviction. Faku then began a process of appealing the ruling and continued serving as an ANC MP until the 2019 general election where she was re-elected to a second term in the National Assembly. Faku was then named the ANC's nominee for chairperson of the

Portfolio Committee on Basic Education The Portfolio Committee on Basic Education is a portfolio committee of the National Assembly in the Parliament of South Africa. The remit of this committee is to oversee the work of the Department of Basic Education, Umalusi and the South African ...

, but her nomination was later withdrawn and the former Northern Cape MEC for Sports, Arts and Culture Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba was selected to be committee chairperson. Faku resigned from Parliament on 5 July 2019, less than two months after the election, after the ANC forced her to resign despite her ongoing appeals process. The Democratic Alliance, the official opposition in parliament, called for a probe into how Faku was elected as an ANC MP in the May election, in spite of her fraud conviction.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faku, Zukisa Living people Xhosa people 1965 births People from East London, South Africa Mayors of places in South Africa African National Congress politicians Members of the National Council of Provinces Women members of the National Council of Provinces Members of the National Assembly of South Africa Women members of the National Assembly of South Africa South African fraudsters Mayors of Buffalo City