Solid, trustworthy and a man of integrity, Mondli Gungubele has become minister in the presidency in what will be his second stint in the national executive.
He previously served as deputy finance minister from February 2018 to May 2019, and until Thursday’s appointment as minister he was chair of parliament’s social development committee.
A close aide to President Cyril Ramaphosa, Gungubele replaces Jackson Mthembu, who died in January from Covid-19, and takes over from acting minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni.
Gungubele was critical of former president Jacob Zuma’s defiance of the Constitutional Court and was vocal about the civil unrest and violence that swept through KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last month.
Born in 1957, Gungubele has a long history in the ANC and the trade union movement. In the 1980s and early ’90s he held leadership posts in the National Union of Mineworkers, Cosatu and the SA Health Workers Congress. He was founding chair of the East Rand region of the ANC in 1991 and from 1992 to 2017 was a member of the Gauteng provincial executive committee.
Gungubele served as MEC for several portfolios in the Gauteng provincial executive — MEC for social development & community services from 1994 to 1997, MEC for health from 1997 to 1999 and MEC for sport recreation, arts & culture from 1999 to 2004.
From 2004 to 2007 he headed the economic affairs portfolio committee in the Gauteng provincial legislature. He served as mayor of the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality from 2010 to 2016.
Gungubele has a BCom (Law) degree, holds a national diploma in nursing and was a schoolteacher in the early 1980s.
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