Ms Johanna Maluleke (ANC)

johanna

What is your political background? I became involved in politics at primary school in Soshanguve, Pretoria, quite unaware that I was gradually getting involved. In high school I was actively involved in boycotts against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of learning. Student politics in 1984 were influenced by movements like the Black Power Movement. I was denied permission to enter Mathibestad in the former Bophuthatswana homeland, where my parents lived, due to my political activity and told to return to Pretoria.

Upon my return to Pretoria, I discovered that the programmes we had been involved in at school had been driven by the mass democratic movement as our meetings had been held at the Roman Catholic Church in F section, Soshanguve; where Pastor Smangaliso Mkhatshwa was the patron of the United Democratic Front (UDF).

After matriculating in 1992, I returned to Mathibestad where I officially joined a branch of the ANC - underground of course. In 1993, when a recognised structure of the ANC was allowed to operate in Bophuthatswana, I was elected branch secretary. When the new municipal demarcations came in 2000, I then fell under ward 12 of Moretele Local Municipality where I was again elected branch secretary until 2002. From 2002 until the end of 2003 I was elected branch chairperson of the ANC Moretele branch and stayed there until 2008. In 2008, I relocated to ward 18 in the same municipality and was elected ward secretary for the third time. I have been a Regional Executive Committee Member of the ANC in the Bojanala Region since 2005 to date.

What does your job as an MP entail? Since I am the ANC Water and Sanitation Whip, I make sure that the party’s policies are implemented by government. I oversee whether the committee’s stance is in line with ANC policies on all water and sanitation related matters.

What is your impression of the Fifth Parliament so far? At committee level the work proceeds very well amongst the different parties. The challenge is in the Chamber. What I don’t understand is that we go on oversight as multi-party members and we complete oversight reports as the same multi-party group but coming to the Chamber you would be surprised that a member from our multi-party group rejects the report when it has to be adopted by the National Assembly. That amounts to someone rejecting their own report as it were because everyone’s input was included in the oversight reports.

What constituency area have you been assigned to you by your party? What is most interesting about your constituency work so far? I have been assigned the Madibeng district. I used to have two constituencies - Moretele and Madibeng and I enjoyed working in Moretele, because the politics there were not as aggressive as in Madibeng. The challenge in Madibeng is that everyone there is a leader and things are difficult, even as an MP because they know your history in the party.

The most prevalent issues in my constituency are applications for identity documents, illegal marriages, grants and access to pension funds. An example of access to pension challenges would be a teacher submitting a notice of retirement in January 2016 for actually resignation in March. The forms would be held somewhere without processing until March. The said individual might even stay another three months to June 2016 without pension payouts. Only when said individual would go to governments pension administrators would the former teacher be told to track her application at the regional Department of Basic Education (DBE) as it would not have been passed on to the pension administrators at all.

What are you most passionate about - this applies both in a political/professional arena as well as personally? Coming from such a disadvantaged background, I am most passionate about a resilient spirit that fosters hard work, volunteerism and wanting to be of service to others. That is what the ANC taught me.

What would your message to South Africa be? Sometimes citizens forget easily where we come from because you will find someone in an RDP house that is electrified with tap water saying the government has done nothing for them. Even though tap water is still a challenge where I come from, at least we have water tankers supplying us with water. South Africans have to go and register so that they can exercise their constitutional and democratic right to vote.

To learn about this Member, visit her profile here.

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