President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Mondli Gungubele as Communications and Digital Technologies Minister, effective March 6.

Amid changes made to South Africa’s various ministries, the new Minister, a former trade union leader and educator, moves from the Minister in the Presidency position he has held since August 2021.

Gungubele has replaced Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, who held the role since August 2021, and has now been appointed to a Minister in the Presidency role.

In a tweet, extending a welcome, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies said that Gungubele brought with him invaluable experience and wisdom having excelled in all three spheres of government.

Gungubele, who holds a BCom (Law) degree and a National Diploma in Nursing with various other certificate courses, has, since December 2017, previously served as Portfolio Committee of Social Development chairperson and a Convener of the Social Transformation Cluster Committee since the start of the administration’s sixth term of Parliament in June 2019, according to a statement issued by the Presidency.

He served, from February 2018 until May 2019, as Finance Deputy Minister, prior to which, after serving a five-year term as City of Ekurhuleni executive mayor from 2010 to 2016, he was deployed to Parliament and served on the Portfolio Committees on Communications and Public Enterprises respectively.

“Gungubele was part of the collective which led State broadcaster the South African Broadcasting Corporation Inquiry and State-owned power utility Eskom Inquiry, both processes which paved the way for the turnaround of these two enterprises,” the Presidency said.

He has held the positions of Gauteng provincial government Health MEC, Sports MEC, Gauteng Legislature Economic Affairs Portfolio Committee chairperson, the whip of the Justice and Constitutional Development Portfolio Committee and has led Gauteng’s Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture agenda.

Gungubele was actively involved in worker struggles in 1973, became a member of the National Union of Mine Workers in 1982 and was elected as Congress of South African Trade Unions chairperson in 1989, before taking up the position of chairperson of the Africa National Congress (ANC) Vosloorus branch in 1992.

He became the founding chairperson of the ANC East Rand Region and he was elected to the Provincial Executive Committee of the ANC in Gauteng.