President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Khumbudzo Ntshavheni as the acting minister in the presidency after the death of Jackson Mthembu, the presidency announced on Wednesday.
Ntshavheni, who is also minister of small business development, will continue to hold her portfolio as well as the acting ministerial position “until further notice”, spokesperson Tyrone Seale said.
Mthembu, who was a close ally of Ramaphosa and one of the ministers at the forefront of communicating the government’s strategy on the Covid-19 pandemic, died from complications related to the coronavirus last week.
He was appointed as minister in the presidency by Ramaphosa, responsible for planning, monitoring and evaluation, in 2019.
Ntshavheni, who hails from Limpopo, was also appointed for the first time to the cabinet in 2019 after the general elections. She supported Ramaphosa in the run up to the ANC’s 2017 Nasrec elective conference and was active in his campaign in Limpopo.
Since the pandemic took hold in SA in 2020, Ntshavheni, in her role as small business minister, was tasked with ensuring relief was provided to small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs).
When the lockdown took effect in March 2020, she announced a debt-relief funding scheme to assist SMMEs negatively affected by the shutdown.
Ntshavheni has come under fire for applying race-based criteria to the relief funding, with the DA approaching the high court to overturn the criteria. The opposition party lost the case after the court ruled that “race, gender, youth and disability” must be taken into account in the awarding of state relief to businesses stricken by the pandemic.
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