hon. nosipho dorothy ntwanambi

PROFILE OF NOSIPHO DOROTHY NTWANAMBI
POSITION: Chief Whip (National Council of Provinces)
DATE OF BIRTH: 25 September 1959 PLACE OF BIRTH: Gugulethu ( Western Cape) BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Member of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) and
Deputy President of the ANC Women’s League
Nosipho Dorothy Ntwanambi is undoubtedly an accomplished
dynamic and courageous public leader who joins the list of
leaders who have played a pivotal role in helping define the
political and social fabric of a post apartheid South Africa.
Her illustrious political involvement in the struggle against
apartheid is a true epitome of a community leader who rose
and surmounted the travesties of growing up in a repressive
apartheid society that was characterised by deep rooted racial,
cultural and gender discrimination that faced many of the
women of her time.
Nosipho Ntwanambi was born on 25 September 1959 at
Gugulethu in the Western Cape Province. The eldest daughter
of five, she regards the year of her birth as interesting because:
HON. NOSIPHO DOROTHY NTWANAMBI
CHIEF WHIP
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES
“it is the very same year that former President Nelson Mandela
delivered his most revered speech, the Verwoerd’s Grim Plot,
fiercely criticising the apartheid government for legalising
separate settlement for blacks, and the year of the birth of the
Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).”
Growing up in a visibly marginalised and poverty stricken
community in Gugulethu, Nosipho Ntwanambi had a relentless
curiosity about the situation faced by many black people,
particularly women in Gugulethu. She formally started her
political life when she joined the ANC as a student during
the 1976 uprisings that saw millions of students across South
Africa protesting against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of
instruction in black schools.
Nosipho Ntwanambi attended school at Fezeka High School. At
the age 22, she had extraordinary tactical-political skills and
became what she would remain all her life: a determined and
committed public leader whose vision and ideals were to fight
for the rights of women who were ostracized and shackled
to grim conditions of poverty, underdevelopment and gender
discrimination in South Africa.
Nosipho Ntwanambi went on to become a teacher at
Siyazingisa Primary School in 1983 until 1997, teaching English,
Geography, History and Xhosa. Instead of joing her peers to
enjoy an easy youthful township life, during the week she
would juggle her schedule between being a teacher and the
home chores to attend secret meetings of like minded women
from Gugulethu who went on to serve in various structures of
the ANC. On weekends she would attend secret meetings of
the ANC and was later incarcerated in the notorious Pollsmoor
prison in Cape Town.
In 1983, she joined the women activists that formed the United
Women’s Organisation (UWO) and then in 1985 she was one of
the pioneers of the Democratic Teachers’ Union (DTU), which
later merged with other teachers’ unions to form the South
African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU).
Nosipho Ntwanambi is a political activist whose unparalleled
dedication to the struggle against apartheid and the gender
stereotyping of women saw her rise from the dusty streets of
Gugulethu to serving in various leadership structures of the
political formation that pioneered the demise of the apartheid
regime in 1994, including serving in various positions in the
ANC and its Women’s League and joining the most powerful
women in the corridors of Parliament.
Produced by Parliament of the Republic of South Africa
Parliamentary Communication Services
Inspired by People
Her continued selfless political commitment as a politically
fired-up gender and human rights activist in the ANC resulted
in her election to serve in the National Executive Committee
(NEC) and the National Working Committee (NWC) of the ANC
Women’s League.
In 2003 she was elected convener on the Women’s League
NEC deployees in the Western Cape Province. She also serves
in the Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) and the Provincial
Working Committee (PWC) of the ANC in the Western Cape
Province.
Nosipho Ntwanambi joined the National Council of Provinces
(NCOP) in 1999 and was elected Chairperson of the Select
Committee on Economic and Foreign Affairs in 2004.
In 2005, she was elected Chairperson of the Parliamentary
Women’s Caucus and has served in various international
structures such as the Commonwealth Parliamentary
Association Assembly (CPA) and the South African Development
Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF). She was elected
to the NEC of the ANC at its watershed December 2007 National
Conference that was held in Polokwane.
In 2008, she became the first woman to be elected the
Chief Whip of the NCOP (a former senate and second house
of Parliament) since its establishment in 1998. This has been
hailed by several gender organisations as a major milestone in
the representation of women in key decision making structures
in Parliament. She was re-elected to serve as the Chief Whip in
May 2009 in the Fourth Parliament.
She was recently elected the Deputy President of the ANC
Women’s League.