David Mabuza's funeral details confirmed
Mabuza passed away at a hospital in Sandton, Johannesburg on Thursday, 3 July, after experiencing respiratory problems.
Speaking to journalists in Barberton, Mpumalanga, on Saturday, 5 July, the Mabuza family spokesperson Desmond Moela said Mabuza will be buried in his home province, Mpumalanga, although the final resting place has not yet been confirmed.
Moela said the funeral will be arranged jointly between the family, government and his party the African National Congress (ANC).
Condolences continue to pour in for Mabuza as various politicians have paid tribute to him, with others visiting his homes in Johannesburg and Barberton since his passing was announced.
The South African previously reported that the 64-year-old also served as the Deputy President of the African National Congress (ANC) from December 2017 to December 2022, and also served as a member of Parliament from 2018 until his resignation in 2023.
Before being appointed deputy president, 'DD' held several positions in government including: Premier of Mpumalanga from 2009 to 2018
Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Agriculture and Land Administration from 2008 to 2009 in Mpumalanga
MEC for Roads and Transport from 2007 to 2008
Member of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature from 2004 to 2007
Member of Parliament (MP) of the Republic of South Africa from 2001 to 2004
Mpumalanga MEC for Housing from 1999 to 2001
MEC for Education between 1994 and 1998
Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1.
Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X, and Bluesky for the latest news.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Maverick
3 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
SAPS commissioner accuses police minister of derailing probe into political killings
KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has alleged that senior figures, including Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, undermined investigations into political killings and organised crime. Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner, on Sunday claimed that the disbandment of the Political Killings Task Team was orchestrated to shield politically connected members of a criminal syndicate from prosecution, with the assistance of Police Minister Senzo Mchunu. Mkhwanazi said, 'I can confirm before South Africans today that the investigation which these members were involved with in Gauteng has unmasked the syndicate, and this syndicate involves, amongst others, politicians who are currently serving in Parliament.' He said some syndicate members were in 'the South African Police Service, the metro police and Correctional Services. They include prosecutors in Gauteng province, the judiciary … and all these are controlled by the drug cartel and businesspeople in Gauteng. This act, of course, undermines the criminal justice system in this country.' In a presentation shared to accompany the briefing, Mkhwanazi outlined the allegations. The Political Killings Task Team was formed after the 2018 assassination of ANC activist Musawenkosi 'Qashana' Mchunu. Backed by a multi-agency presidential task force and praised for its prosecution-led, intelligence-driven strategy, the team had, by 2025, investigated more than 600 politically related dockets, arrested 436 suspects, and recovered 156 firearms, with at least 55 of them linked to political crimes. Convictions to date total over 1,800 years in prison across more than 100 cases. Daily Maverick reported that on 31 December 2024, Police Minister Mchunu issued a letter to National Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Fannie Masemola, requesting that the team be disbanded. The minister said the task team was no longer necessary because it did not add value to policing in the province, according to the SABC. Despite this instruction, Mkhwanazi said at the time he would continue the fight to ensure the task team was allowed to proceed with high-profile investigations. Mkhwanazi said members of the task team were working with detectives in Gauteng on possible cover-ups in murder cases in the province that involved senior police officers. The disbandment of the task team was followed by a series of internal memos from SAPS Crime Detection head Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya withdrawing 121 case dockets from the team without the approval of the national or provincial commissioners. These dockets have reportedly sat untouched at the SAPS head office ever since. WhatsApp messages Sunday's briefing included explosive revelations such as WhatsApp messages and screenshots allegedly sourced from the phone of accused businessman Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, showing communication between Matlala, Minister Mchunu and a politically connected intermediary, Brown Mogotsi. The chats suggest knowledge of the task team's disbandment before it was made public, direct discussions of 'solutions' to investigations and apparent financial support for political campaigns and 8 January ANC events. Matlala was arrested by the task team in May and faces charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and money laundering. Less than two weeks later, the Investigative Directorate Against Corruption moved to seize the task team's exhibits, including Matlala's cellphone, and arrested the team's project coordinator. One of the syndicate suspects arrested by the team, Katiso Molefe, was granted bail. The effect, Mkhwanazi said on Sunday, had been chilling, with the Gauteng investigations into organised crime 'compromised' and confidence in the State's willingness to prosecute politically connected suspects further eroded. The EFF expressed grave concern, saying the briefing laid bare 'the existence of a powerful, organised criminal syndicate operating at the highest levels of the South African state'. The EFF urged the chairperson on Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police, Ian Cameron, to convene an urgent portfolio committee sitting for a briefing from Mchunu. Cameron said the DA had written to National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza for an urgent debate in Parliament on corruption within the SAPS. 'These disturbing allegations of corruption, political interference and malfeasance at the very top of South Africa's law enforcement and national security infrastructure must be investigated immediately,' said Cameron. 'The President of the republic, who is presently away, must also immediately respond to allegations against a Cabinet minister.' 'Great role model' On social media on Sunday, Eskom board chairperson Mteto Nyati called Mkhwanazi 'a great role model' and said his 'decision to speak out' was 'exemplary'. Build One South Africa (Bosa)said it was 'disturbed by the string of weighty revelations. Of particular concern is General Mkhwanazi's claim that the task team appointed to investigate police killings was deliberately sabotaged from within the South African Police Service (SAPS). If true, this fundamentally undermines the integrity of our criminal justice institutions and threatens public safety. 'His allegations implicate senior police officials, prosecutors, judges, members of Parliament and members of the executive in acts that sabotage law enforcement and enable political killings. 'These are the symptoms of a state in capture crisis, where criminal syndicates and corrupt politicians allegedly operate with impunity.' Bosa joined the growing calls for Mchunu, Mkhwanazi and others involved to urgently appear before Parliament. Mkhwanazi's briefing ended with a call to SAPS members to 'stand up and protect our people against this criminal syndicate', even as he confirmed a formal criminal investigation was under way into the apparent capture of parts of South Africa's criminal justice system. 'Despite all these challenges, we acknowledge and appreciate the resilience of the members of the Political Killings Task Team,' said Mkhwanazi. 'They remain operational, albeit with serious attempts to disrupt their work.' Daily Maverick reached out to Mchunu's spokesperson, Kamogelo Mogotsi, for comment and received a video of the minister saying: 'We have become aware of what General Mkhwanazi has been saying. I didn't have time to look at TV, but there are those statements that he has said. We will, in good time, apply our minds to those kinds of statements.' DM
Daily Maverick
3 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Lack of political chemistry between SA leaders spells big problems for the GNU
The spat over whether the DA is disobeying the President by refusing to join the National Dialogue is indicative of a major problem within SA's national coalition. There is no chemistry between the leaders of the DA and the ANC, which threatens to poison the entire arrangement. On Friday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the DA's refusal to join the National Dialogue was the 'worst form of hypocrisy'. Others in the ANC have said that if DA leader John Steenhuisen refused to join the interministerial committee driving the process, it would be an act of defiance against the President. This shows that while the DA's announcement that it would not join the dialogue was initially viewed as a weak response to the sacking of the DA's deputy minister Andrew Whitfield, it has hit home with Ramaphosa and the ANC. It is more proof that, after the coalition has been in office for more than a year, personal relationships between the leaders of its two main parties have not improved. Both the ANC and the DA can point to incidents for which they can blame the other. The DA could say it started when Ramaphosa signed controversial Acts, including the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act and the Expropriation Act, into law. They can claim this was deliberately provocative, designed to weaken them. The ANC can argue that the DA's ministers have defied or contradicted policies adopted by previous governments, such as Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi's decision to withdraw the SABC Bill. While the ANC can argue that the DA should never have said it would vote against the Budget, the DA can respond that the ANC should have consulted with it on the two percentage point VAT increase beforehand. Within this are incidents that appear to be deliberately disrespectful. Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube would have been expected to attend the signing ceremony of the Bela Bill. However, politically, this was impossible as she had promised her DA constituency that she would oppose the Bill. ANC supporters might well feel she was wrong not to attend the ceremony; DA supporters will believe Ramaphosa deliberately put her in this awkward position. To go any further down the rabbit hole of who is to blame for what will solve nothing. Lack of trust What is clear is that there is a complete lack of trust between the two parties — and, without trust, it may be impossible for them to agree on anything. The importance of a personal relationship can be underestimated in difficult political times. An authoritative account of South Africa's negotiations towards democracy during the 1990s focused on an incident that helped engender trust between the ANC's chief negotiator, Ramaphosa, and the apartheid government's negotiator, Roelf Meyer: when a fishhook got caught in Meyer's hand, he asked Ramaphosa to remove it. At the time, all of those involved in the negotiations had a huge incentive to engender trust. All sides claimed to want a democratic solution and to avoid violence. Also, most of those involved knew very little about each other. When the process started, many of them had never met. Even then, there were angry words between Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, and moments of great tension. The situation now is very different. It is not just that the politicians know one another; it's that they all have long histories of shouting and screaming at each other. The ANC was in power for so long by itself, and the DA in opposition for so many years, that it is easy for members of both parties to fall back on what they know. It can almost seem as if their leaders are most comfortable when fighting each other. Another factor is that there was virtually no preparation for the leaders before they had to work together. Before the election, when the DA was trying to form the Moonshot Pact — a group of parties that could, together, beat the ANC — leaders understood how much work had to be done beforehand. Workshops The founder of the Democracy Works Foundation, Professor William Gumede, ended up running workshops between the leaders of the parties involved in that pact, trying to engender trust between them. There was none of that in this national coalition government. Another factor is the sheer social distance between the leaders of the parties in the coalition. They have grown up in such different circumstances that it may be difficult for them to understand each other. This might seem strange when there is plenty of evidence that millions of South Africans from very different communities interact productively every hour of every day. But in our politics, the more a leader can attack other groups, the more they are rewarded. While the ANC and the DA are in SA's political centre, their leaders have very strong views on issues, which makes it harder for them to work together. And it should not be forgotten just how tough our society is, how raw the disputes are. When the PAC recently brokered a meeting between the ANC and Afrikaner groups (in another indication of how interesting and complex our society is), it described the discussions as having 'blood on the floor, blood on the wall'. This is because of how far apart these groups are, and how their leaders have to manage difficult dynamics. Of course, one hopes that our leaders can rise above all of this.
The Star
7 hours ago
- The Star
DD goes down to the grave with darkest political secrets: families of slain officials speak out
Sifiso Mahlangu | Published 3 hours ago The passing of former deputy president David Dabede Mabuza has prompted a wave of tributes across South Africa — but in Mpumalanga, where he once ruled as premier, it has also reopened painful memories for families who believe the province's darkest political secrets were buried long before him. Mabuza died last week following a prolonged illness. His death has been met with solemn reflection from across the political spectrum, with the ANC organising memorials in multiple provinces. In his hometown of Barberton, mourners have gathered in large numbers to pay their respects. ANC first deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane has led tributes, calling Mabuza a 'dedicated leader who served his people with dignity.' Yet beyond the official statements and songs of remembrance, there is a different tone emerging from communities still living with the scars of unresolved violence. One such voice is that of Tshediso Mohlala, daughter of the late Jimmy Mohlala, the former Mbombela Municipality speaker who was gunned down in 2009 outside his home in KaNyamazane. Mohlala had been outspoken about irregularities tied to the Mbombela Stadium tender ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and was expected to testify about corruption and mismanagement within the municipality. Days before that testimony, he was killed. In a public Facebook post, Tshediso wrote: 'The system may have failed you, Dad. But we believe the truth will never die. We will not stop calling for justice, even when others choose silence. Your name will never be forgotten.'Her words have since been widely shared, reigniting discussions around political violence in Mpumalanga — a province long associated with intimidation, hit-lists, and suspicious killings of whistleblowers. Jimmy Mohlala's murder remains unsolved. He had insisted on accountability for those behind the stadium tender process and pushed for criminal charges against contractors and officials. His death, coming just days before he was due in court, was seen by many as a warning to others who considered speaking out. In an exclusive interview with The Star, Lassy Chiwayo, former Mbombela mayor and one-time political ally turned critic of Mabuza, also reflected on this history in recent interviews. He says Mabuza's tenure was marked by a culture of silence, fear, corruption and a reign of terror. 'There are still too many unanswered questions,' Chiwayo said. 'We were living in a climate where challenging powerful interests could cost you your life. For some of us, it nearly did. Chiwayo, who had been outspoken about alleged corruption in the province, endured intense pressure and threats under Mabuza's leadership. ''At the height of the political tensions, he survived attempts on his life and lived with the daily reality of being on a reported hit-list. Sources within the provincial government at the time claimed his death might have been linked to his refusal to approve a R20 million tender allegedly connected to a politically influential figure. Neither Mohlala's nor Mphatlanyane's murders have resulted in prosecutions. Former businessperson Thabo Theledi, also named on a hit list, said he was shocked to find himself a target. 'I left politics years ago,' he said in a 2010 interview. 'I run a petrol station and have no idea why anyone would want me dead.' A police source later confirmed that an attempted hit on Theledi was narrowly avoided after the would-be assassin backed out. Despite public outrage and years of speculation, progress in these cases has been minimal. Sibongile Nkosi, a provincial police spokesperson, said that while the hit-lists were investigated, authorities were unable to confirm their origins or authenticity. 'A number of people were questioned,' she said, 'but no solid evidence has ever emerged that could lead to successful prosecutions. 'He thrived in chaos. That is why Matthews(Phosa) removed him from the Cabinet in 1996. Wherever he was, there was chaos. There has always been a dark cloud around this man. ''From inflating the matric results when he was an education MEC. When it came to the ANC, he specialised in bogus branches. There was a migration of people from Mozambique and Swaziland to pose as members of the ANC. ''The harm he caused will haunt the ANC, the province and the country long after Mabuza is gone. It will take us decades to correct the years of Mabuza and his tender-thugs. It will take us decades to heal the ANC in Mpumalanga' Chiwayo is among several individuals whose names appeared on alleged hit-lists circulating in the province during the late 2000s and early 2010s. One such list named over 20 individuals marked for assassination or poisoning. Among the names were civil servants, politicians, and businesspeople, many of whom had challenged tender irregularities or refused to cooperate with corrupt demands. Another person named on these lists was Sammy Mphatlanyane, a senior government communications officer, who was shot outside his Nelspruit home in early 2009.
