About Me

VREDEDORP (FIETAS) JOHANNESBURG – MY BIRTHPLACE

Fietas was the unofficial name given to this suburb on the edge of the Johannesburg Inner City. During the apartheid years, the government attempted to exert control over the growing 'Non-White' population of Johannesburg, by setting up 'locations' along racial lines. We lived at 10, Nineteen Street, but I spent a large part of my childhood with my maternal grandparents, The Wadee’s, of Sixteen Street. The Group Areas Act forced us out of Fietas and we moved to Lenasia in 1968, and later to Roshnee in Vereeniging in 1972.

TEACHING ART AND HISTORY (1981-1995)

After Matriculating from Nirvana School in Lenasia in 1977, I went on to become a teacher of history and art at the Transvaal College of Education, which at the time was located in Fordsburg. I taught at William Hills Secondary (1981-82) and then in Roshnee, Vereeniging (1983-1995). Community life involved local activism, managing a local football team and local politics.

POLITICS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (1995-2016)

By the early 90’s political change was imminent. The African National Congress was unbanned, and Nelson Mandela was released on 11 February 1990. At the first democratic elections in 1994, the ANC had to deploy members into government nationally and provincially. As a local ANC activist, I participated in the transitional councils in readiness for the first local election in 1995. I was deployed into the Lekoa-Vaal Metro Council as its first Mayor. I later served as a Speaker of Council and as an MMC for Finance. In 2000 I switched into public administration as an Executive Director for Planning and later as a Municipal Manager in a District and Local Municipality. I left local government in 2016.

10 December 1996 - Hosting the signing of the South African constitution in Sharpeville, Vereeninging (L-R) Yunus Chamda, David Mtimkhulu, Cyril Ramaphosa and Nelson Mandela

CONSULTING AND WORKING IN CIVIL SOCIETY

After leaving local politics I went on to various consulting roles for government and for NGO’s. Concurrently I was a Board member of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation (AKF) since its establishment in 2008. My association with the AKF led me to manage an EU co-funded project called Action-For-Accountability (A4A) which worked in 4 communities, 3 of them in the City of Johannesburg. When the A4A project concluded in January 2025, I took up the role of Coordinator for the Joburg Crisis Alliance.

The Board of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in 2022

PHOTOGRAPHY FOR PLEASURE AND PURPOSE

Photography has been an important interest for me, both for pleasure and for historical purpose. My interest in photography was passed on to me by my Dad and his 1930’s Art Deco Rolleicord camera. As an art teacher I taught photography. This included developing and printing in a darkroom. When ever time and opportunity allows, I enjoy landscape and seascape photography the most. My archive of photographs of events of my local community led me to publish a coffee table book entitled, ROSHNEE-55 on 03 February 2023. I regularly carry a camera with me to events and see it as an important way to record history.