A salary of R80 000 a month, free accommodation and free flights to attend parliament, await Umjindi-based ANC comrade, Derrick Mnguni.
Mnguni, a former principal of Ihlobane Combined School in the Mpuluzi circuit in Mayflower, is one of the 13 candidates for Mpumalanga ANC to national assembly who is heading to parliament in Cape Town. Initially there were 15 people for the province-to-parliament list that was submitted to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), and he was number 12.
However, due to a decline in votes, only 13 of the candidates made it trough.
Mnguni is now on the list of 830 designated members of the national assembly and nine provincial legislatures that was handed over by the IEC’s Pansy Tlakula to Chief Justice Moegoeng Moegoeng last Friday.
As was mentioned by Barberton Times in the edition of April 2, another local comrade, Winnie Msibi, didn’t make the cut.
Msibi’s name was number 168 of the 200 that were on the list.
For her to go to parliament as part of the national assembly, the ANC needed 63 per cent of the votes. At the end, the party received 62 per cent, which won itself 249 of the 400 seats available.
Mnguni will replace one of the local experienced comrades, Chris Gololo, who was in parliament since 2004.
Gololo joined the ANC in Tanzania in 1977. On his return from exile in 1993, he worked as a membership administrator before joining parliament in 2004. He armed himself with qualifications from various countries. He holds a certificate in electrotechnics from Eduardo Garcia Delgado University in Cuba, a certificate in administration (Czechoslovakia), diploma in management (India) and another which he obtained at Institute of Development and Management at Morogoro University in Tanzania.
Bkekizwe Nkambule, Umjindi ANC spokesman, wished Mnguni all the best on behalf of the party. “As he heads to parliament, we hope and believe that he will hoist our flag high by raising issues that affect the community. We are also expecting him to highlight ideas that will benefit the community,” he said.
Nkambule further thanked residents for voting the party into power. “Though we didn’t attain the 90 per cent target we set, we are very thankful for the Umjindi people. We hope they will come in their numbers for the next local government elections,” he added.
Meanwhile, on May 21 Justice Mogoeng will swear in the designated members for the national assembly in Cape Town.
