In the past month or so, we have seen a few firsts for our country. On October 20, Tsakane Maluleke received an uncontested recommendation from parliament’s ad hoc committee on her appointment to the position of SA’s auditor-general. Maluleke has been unanimously voted in by the National Assembly as the new AG – a decision which is to be assented by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Should he assent, this will not be Maluleke’s first stint at being a first.

In 2012 she became the first woman to ascend the office of the auditor-general in the role of deputy auditor-general, since the institution's formation in 1911. Another recent first is the appointment of prof Puleng Lenkabula as the principal and vice-chancellor of the University of South Africa (Unisa), one of the oldest universities on the continent. Although slow – these are important, long overdue strides in our country's transformation mandate...