Presidential spokesperson, Mac Maharaj, says South Africans should remember Minister Public Service and Administration Minister Collins Chabane with great admiration.
Chabane died following a car crash on Sunday. Two VIP protection unit members also perished during the crash whilst driving between Gauteng and Limpopo.
Maharaj says, “I think South African’s have a duty to remember minister Chabane with great love and admiration for his career as a liberation fighter, as a person who was part of the architecture of the new South Africa. Here was an all round South African we all need to remember him and use him as a role model.”
He also says the details of the accident are still being investigated.
Click below to listen to Maharaj.
In a statement, President Jacob Zuma said the government is deeply shocked by Chabane’s untimely death. The presidency confirmed the death on twitter:
Minister Collins Chabane dies in car crash http://t.co/al3FIHj5Iw
— PresidencyZA (@PresidencyZA) March 15, 2015
Chabane was a minister in the Presidency who led the planning for the funeral of former president Nelson Mandela in 2013. He was born on April 15, 1960 at the Xikundu Village, near Malamulele, in Limpopo.
He served as minister in the Presidency responsible for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation during the fourth administration.
Chabane was able to develop and build the new Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation within a short space of time, and was able to make the monitoring and evaluation function a crucial part of government work and a distinct feature of President Zuma’s fourth administration.
He joined the ANC underground activities when he was only 17-years-old and went into exile (in Angola) in May 1980, where he also underwent military training. Chabane began doing underground work in 1981, and he was arrested in 1984 and spent the next six years on Robben Island.
He was later release in 1990.
In 1998 he was appointed MEC for the department of Public Works and leader of government business in the Legislature. In 2005 he was appointed as MEC for Economic Development, Environment and Tourism – the Department charged with the responsibility to drive the provincial economy.
In early May 2010, Chabane was honoured by the Southern Africa Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), during a function held at the Ranch Hotel outside Polokwane. Chabane was re-elected into the ANC NEC during the Polokwane National Congress.
– By Tshepiso Moche
