Ekhuruleni council’s Pelisa Nkunjana at work at her office in Germiston. Picture: Nigel Sibanda
For Ekurhuleni council whip Pelisa Nkunjana, activism is in her blood – her father was one of the founding members of the Federation of South African Trade Unions, forerunner of SA’s largest labour federation, the Congress of SA Trade Unions.
But unlike some who have relied on anti-apartheid struggle family ties to quickly move up the political leadership ladder, Nkunjana has not assumed to be entitled to any senior party or government position.
In the past, Nkunjana has been deployed by the ANC to serve in various capacities, including being on the city of Ekurhuleni’s mayoral executive and in the legislature.
She has now been chosen to whip the council and the executive into line – adopting a zero-tolerance approach to poor performance and unaccountability.
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Part of her role includes being responsible for maintaining cohesiveness among all political parties represented in the council, facilitating depute resolution and allocating councillors to legislature committees in consultation with party whips.
She also works with the leader of government business and sits on the programming committee, making allowance for the presentation of diverse political views in council.
In her political role of regional head of the ANC’s organisational rebuilding and renewal task team in Ekurhuleni – a crucial mass mobilisation component in the party’s quest to improve its vote tally in the 2026 local government polls – Nkunjana is optimistic about efforts to regain lost electorate support.
Confident about championing an ANC campaign geared to making fresh inroads to woo voters, Nkunjana said the party had already begun with its renewal programme – “something I am excited about, having held a twoday ANC caucus lekgotla earlier in October”.
But, given the poor ANC performance in the 2024 national elections, she conceded that the renewal and rebuilding of the ANC “is not going to be an easy process”.
She said: “We need to align the programme of the party with the work we are doing on the ground.
“The ANC has 78 wards and where we are represented, we have ward councillors.
“We need to have a standard programme and agenda where we know that if the ANC has BEC (branch executive committee) meetings fortnightly, there should be BGMs (branch general meetings) monthly.
“Our current weakness is that ward councillors are not sitting in the BECs, which is where they are supposed to be.
“We need to make sure that the programme we develop from the lekgotla makes ward councillors sit in the BEC, to account in public, because the primary function of the ANC is to drive service delivery in our communities.
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“Our public representatives are the face of the organisation in communities, complying with their roles and functions – in line with their deployment mandate.
“As part of the ANC renewal, we are going to be strict on them.
“In my capacity as the chief whip and leader of the ANC caucus, my task is to make sure ANC-deployed cadres perform through calling public meetings and listening to people.
“If there are service delivery issues unattended to, we will be there to call them to account.”
As a giant poster of President Cyril Ramaphosa, dressed in a suit and giving the thumbs up, adorns her office in the Germiston Oliver Tambo council precinct, Nkunjana is either hard at work on her laptop, responding to phone calls or engaged in a string of meetings.
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Despite a tight schedule, Nkunjana found time to accommodate an interview with Saturday Citizen.
“You are welcome – let us sit down and talk,” she said, beaming, followed by a warm handshake.
Born in Daveyton and raised in what she described as “an ANC home”, Nkunjana expressed happiness at having risen through the ranks of the party, “without taking advantage of the family’s history in the anti-apartheid struggle involvement”.
“Being raised in an ANC home does not automatically entitle you to assume public office.
“Not long ago, I was reminded by former president Thabo Mbeki that when you introduce yourself as ‘a comrade’, that is not a general title fitting just about anybody.
“For you to be a comrade, there must be certain qualities – among them your conduct, vision and leadership principles – in line with party objectives.”
Nkunjana’s early political activism and involvement in nongovernmental organisation (NGO) projects propelled her to greater heights.
“I became active in politics at a young age – knowing of no other life than playing a role in NGOs, government and political structures,” she said.
In 2006, she became a ward councillor in Ekurhuleni, serving in different roles, from youth structures to ANC caucus.
She also served under mayors Duma Nkosi, Ntombi Mekgwe, Mondli Gungubele, Mzwandile Masina, Tania Campbell, Sivuyile Ngodwana and, now, Nkosindiphile Xhakaza.
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