Sylvia Lucas

Sylvia Lucas is the fourth Premier of the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, elected and inaugurated as successor to Hazel Jenkins. She served briefly as Acting Premier and before that as MEC (Member of the Executive Council) for Environmental Affairs in the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature.^[1][2][3][4] She was born on 22 April 1964, and grew up in Upington in the Northern Cape.^[5]

Education and career

Lucas attended the Van Heerden High School in Upington where in the early 1980s she first became involved in political activities.^[6]

She later took part in the Rosedale rent boycotts, and was part of the delegation to the Transitional Council, to ensure provision of prepaid electricity to communities when they could not afford conventional electrical power.^[7]

Sylvia Lucas joined the African National Congress (ANC) as an ordinary branch member in 1992^[8] having resigned from a secretarial post in the National Party’s social welfare office.^[9]

From 1995 to 2000 Lucas served as a councilor for the //Khara Hais Local Municipality, in Upington, while serving in regional structures of the ANC in the area.^[10]

In 2000 Lucas was elected to serve in the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature. Her name was fourth on the candidate list for the Northern Cape announced by ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe in 2003.^[11]

In 2004 she was appointed an MEC and served on the provincial executive committee in the Northern Cape. She had also meanwhile risen through the ranks of the ANC Women’s League, acting as provincial secretary following the resignation of Maykie Dipuo. By 2007, as deputy provincial chairwoman of the Women’s League, she was a member of the League’s national executive committee.^[12]

Lucas participated in ANC international study tours in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and “holds numerous university certificates.”^[13]

From Acting Premier to Premier of the Northern Cape

After former Northern Cape premier Hazel Jenkins collapsed, suffering a stroke, in 2012,^[14] the Executive Council of the Province appointed Grizelda Cjiekella as Acting Premier for the duration of Premier Jenkins’ incapacity leave.^[15] When, a year later, Hazel Jenkins stepped down from the post of Premier of the Northern Cape, it was Sylvia Lucas whom the ANC in the province announced, on 19 April 2013, as the premier’s successor.^[16][17] On the date set for Lucas’s inauguration as Premier, however, the motion to recognize Jenkins' stepping down was opposed on procedural grounds. A vote in the Northern Cape legislature on 30 April 2013, in which opposition parties COPE and the Democratic Alliance took part, failed to achieve the required two thirds support for the motion to be carried. Accordingly Jenkins technically remained premier and Lucas was sworn in on the same day as Grizelda Cjiekella's successor as acting premier of the province.^[18]

When Hazel Jenkins subsequently resigned, with effect from 22 May 2013,^[19] the move towards inaugurating her successor was possible,^[20] so that acting premier Sylvia Lucas was officially elected and sworn in as premier of the province on 23 May 2013.^[21] She delivered her inaugural speech as Premier on 30 May 2013.^[22]

"Fast Food Premier"

Premier Lucas came under media scrutiny when it was revealed that she spent R53,000 ($6455.54) on fast food and personal groceries, with her government-issued credit card, in the first ten weeks of her taking up the post. This was calculated to be an average spend of R760 ($92.57), a point that was speedily picked up upon by the official Democratic Alliance opposition.^[23]

The Premier defended her high charges by remarking, "How would we have eaten if we didn't use taxpayers' money?". The ANC later weighed in, defending the Premier, and lashed out against the various political and editorial cartoonists that had lampooned her in print media - particularly against notorious cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro.^[24] She became popularly nicknamed the "Fast Food Premier" in media reports and newspaper headlines.

External links

• Premier Sylvia Lucs spends 50k of Tax payers's money on fast food in 2 Months
• Acting Premier Sylvia Lucas's speech following her swearing-in on 30 April 2013
• Address by the Premier of the Northern Cape Province, Ms Sylvia Lucas, on the occasion of the tabling of Budget Vote 1, at the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature, 30 May 2013

References