KwaZulu-Natal premier-elect Nomusa Dube-Ncube has described her rise to the highest office in the province during Women's Month as an honour to late women party activists such as Victoria Mxenge, Dorothy Nyembe and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

Dube-Ncube was picked to lead the province after interviews which she described as “intense”. She replaces Sihle Zikalala who resigned two years before his term was to end.

She expressed her appreciation to the ANC in the province and the national leadership for trusting her with the job. 

“Right now we are in the month of August and I am sure our leaders such as Victoria Mxenge, Dorothy Nyembe, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela are rejoicing that during the month the ANC as champion of nonracialism, non-sexism is indeed ensuring that women who are capable are given responsibility to lead. I humbly accept, and wish to thank the ANC and commit that we will not disappoint the people of KwaZulu-Natal,” she said.

The premier-elect is from the eThekwini region and was born in KwaMashu. She holds a master’s degree in public administration and is pursuing a PhD.

She served as the speaker of eThekwini municipality before being assigned to the foreign mission as ambassador to the Czech Republic. She was previously with the department of economic development, tourism and environmental affairs. Dube-Ncube also served as the MEC for Cogta for 10 years. She was most recently the MEC for finance. 

Dube-Ncube will be voted in at the provincial legislature on a date yet to be announced.

She said she is looking forward to working with the ANC leadership and all colleagues in government.

“To ensure that we deal with issues we are still facing in our province — those of socioeconomic challenges, unemployment — in our provincial growth strategies we talk about a capable state, economic growth that needs to reflect the demographics of our people but also needs to reflect people in rural areas, so they get to have opportunities.

“We are going to be working with all our structures in ensuring that the policies of the ANC are here to unite SA,” she said.

Introducing Dube-Ncube, provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo said they were a generation aiming to secure equal rights for women and remove gender discrimination. 

“This is a very crucial day for the ANC as we are making history by introducing officially and unveiling the first woman premier-elect to the people of KwaZulu-Natal,” said Mtolo.

“We know that non-sexism is embedded in the ANC’s core mission. Indeed, we pride ourselves that during Women’s Month, we have moved one more step ahead to the realisation of this movement’s founding principle.”

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