Frene Ginwala

Frene Noshir Ginwala (born 25 April 1932)^[1] is a South African journalist and politician who was the Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa from 1994 to 2004.^[2]

Frene Ginwala is an Indian South African from the Parsi-Indian community of western India. Dr Frene Ginwala studied for a DPhil at Linacre College, Oxford.

Dr Frene Ginwala was appointed as the first chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in April 2005 and is currently serving a four year term. She is one of only four female University Chancellors in South Africa.^[3]

Pikoli

Frene Ginwala 25/4/1932., albeit in different fields. Miriam in the musical world and Frene with her “pen” and gift of the gab. She has written a number of books dealing with various aspects of the struggle against injustice. For their efforts, both the women have been honoured by scores of international and local institutions and governments. I will dare not attempt to enumerate them for fear of busting the space allotted to me for this script. The internet can do a better job. Frene Noshir Ginwala has a very chequered life. Using her anonymity, she played a tremendous role in establishing underground escape routes for ANC leaders and cadres in the period following the Sharpeville massacre and the declaration of the State of Emergency (SOE) in 1960. These included Deputy-President of the ANC Oliver Tambo and Dr Yusuf Dadoo, two very senior leaders of the liberation movement. She also organised safe houses for those who had to remain in the country. Frene also chauffeured NIC (Natal Indian Congress) leaders Dr Monty Naicker and J. N. Singh, who were operating from the underground after managing to dodge the police swoop. Their instructions were to travel around the province and raise money from secret donors in order to support the families left destitute through the arrest of their breadwinners under the SOE which hung over the country for five months. Eventually she had to leave South Africa in the latter part of 1960 and together with Tambo, and Dadoo, they established an exile ANC office in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika which was still under British Colonial Administration until 9 December 1961. The overthrow of the regime in Zanzibar in 1963 paved the way for the formation of the United Republic of Tanzania in 1964. The young activist Frene Ginwala became a “Mädchen für alles”. Apart from the ANC, she threw herself in a very broad field of activities. She gave lectures to trainees diplomats at Oxford University, she studied, she wrote for a number of the established media in the UK and elsewhere including the BBC. Frene Ginwala was very instrumental in establishing a communications system in the newly born Republic of Tanzania and Zanzibar. At the request of President Julius Nyerere, she became the managing editor of the English-speaking daily newspaper Standard, and Sunday News. During the entire period of her exile (she returned to South Africa in 1991) she traversed the world preaching the horrors of apartheid and the fight against it. Despite the work load, Dr Ginwala found time to study and has a number of academic titles from a host of universities in Africa and abroad. She is a barrister at law; historian; a political scientist, and holds a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. In the first democratic national elections of 1994 in South Africa, Dr Frene Ginwala was elected to Parliament. She was nominated by the ANC caucus and elected by parliament as the first woman to the position of Speaker of the House. A position she held from 1994 until 2004. Although “retired”, the activities of this woman who is celebrating her 80th birthday, is mind-boggling. She is serving in a number of international organisations including UN subsidiaries; Trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation; Chancellor of the University of KwaZulu Natal. The list is long.

President Thabo Mbeki appointed Ginwala on 30 September 2007 to conduct the enquiry into National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli's fitness to hold office.^[4] She decided generally in favour of Pikoli, but criticised poor communication between departments. She also criticised the Director General of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, Advocate Menzi Simelane, whose testimony was contradictory, and without basis in fact or Law.^[5]

She also had harsh words for Jacob Zuma on his subsequent appointment of Simelane to National Director of Public Prosecutions.^[6]

Honors

• In 2003 she was awarded the North-South Prize.

• Order of the Rising Sun (Japan), 2008.^[7]

References

v t e Speakers of the Lower House of Parliament of South Africa House of Assembly (1910-1994) Molteno Krige Jansen De Waal Jansen Van Coller Naudé Conradie Klopper Schlebusch Loots Du Toit Greeff Le Grange Louw National Assembly (1994-present) Ginwala Mbete Mahlangu-Nkabinde Sisulu