Manuel de Freitas

Manny de Freitas is a South African politician, currently a Member of Parliament with the Democratic Alliance, and was appointed as the Shadow Minister of Home Affairs in 2012, a position he held until 2014, when he was made Shadow Minister of Transport.

He was born in Lüderitz in the then South West Africa, now independent Namibia. He has been a resident of Johannesburg since the age of 7.

He joined the Democratic Alliance in 1993 when it was still named Democratic Party. He was very involved in the DP Youth and served as its federal chairman for 4 years.

Amongst numerous organisations, de Freitas was on the executive committee of the Lusito School for the Mentally and Physically Disabled and also served on its Council for many years. He has also been involved with the United Cerebral Palsy Association. He sat on various boards such as the Portuguese Community Radio and the board of editors of the international LIBEL magazine and Youth Encounter Spirit-Southern Africa. He sits on the board of the Luso-South African Business Council, of which he is also a founder-member. He is a member of the Madeiran Community Council and is the Gauteng Provincial Chairman of the CANSA Association. In October 2008 he was invited to serve on the World Council for Portuguese Communities.

He has hosted various radio shows both in English and in Portuguese (which he speaks fluently) on various radio stations and hosted 2 shows on Radio Veritas, the only Catholic radio station in South Africa, for five years.

In 1995 Manny de Freitas was elected in the first democratic local government elections as one of the country’s youngest councillors. He was elected to the then Eastern Metropolitan Local Council of the then Johannesburg Metropolitan Transitional Council where he served on numerous committees and became Chief Whip of the caucus in 1996.

In 1999 Manny was elected as Member of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.

Manny de Freitas was elected as Member of Parliament in April 2009, when he served as the Shadow Deputy Minister for Transport. In 2011 he was appointed as the Shadow Minister of Home Affairs, a position he held until June 2014 when he was appointed as Shadow Minister of Transport in the Fifth Parliament.

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