It is official, Nomusa Dube-Ncube has been given the nod by the ruling party to succeed Sihle Zikalala as premier of KwaZulu-Natal.
Dube-Ncube’s name together with that of MPLs Mbali Frazer and Amanda Bani were submitted by the newly elected ANC provincial executive committee as candidates to party headquarters in Luthuli House. Interviews for the vacant post were conducted at the weekend.
On Monday during a media briefing held in Durban, provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo said by selecting Dube, the party wanted to dismantle long-held stereotypes that women were powerless and had to survive through dependency on men.
“The NEC [national executive committee] assessment sought to ascertain and ensure that there was a deployment of the best and most competent cadre as premier to serve the movement and the people of KwaZulu-Natal,” said Mtolo.
“Indeed it was a smooth-sailing process completed in one day and the results came back to us as the provincial leadership.”
Mtolo added that the ruling party believed that Dube-Ncube as an experienced cabinet member would hit the ground running. She is expected to be sworn in on Wednesday at the provincial legislature.
The new premier is one of the senior members of the ruling party in the province having also occupied various portfolios in government including being the MEC for finance and cooperative governance and traditional affairs. She was also South Africa’s ambassador to Czech Republic.
Fears were rife that after failing in her bid to become ANC provincial chairperson, she might face political obscurity. Dube-Ncube, who is often referred to as a game-changer within the ruling party’s circles, failed to reach the threshold for nomination in the watershed provincial elective conference that sealed the fate of Zikalala in July.
Zikalala had faced unbearable pressure from his party and the public. He subsequently fell on his sword, announcing that he was vacating the office. His detractors claimed the leadership collective under his tutelage had sold out former president Jacob Zuma and sided with his alleged nemesis Cyril Ramaphosa.
Speculations are rife that after Dube’s swearing in, she will immediately announce a cabinet reshuffle to accommodate those who had emerged in the conference.
Among the new five-member structure, only Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu (deputy chair) and Sipho Hlomuka (deputy secretary) serve in the provincial cabinet. Chairperson Siboniso Duma is currently chair of chairs in the legislature, Bheki Mtolo has resigned as mayor of Kokstad while treasurer Ntuthuko Mahlaba has not been deployed to government.
Dube-Ncube, who described the interview as intense, promised to deliver radically the ruling party’s policies.
“My first priority is dealing with crippling issues that we are facing as a province such as unemployment,” she said.
“If you look at our national development plan and the provincial growth and development strategy, it talks about the government that should drive economic growth and deliver basic services to the people.”
Other challenges that she will face are the plight of flood victims and the Phoenix killings. The killings, which were as a result of the July unrest in 2021, still divide Africans and people of Indian descent in the province.
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