Parliament, Thursday, 23 May 2019 – Permanent Delegates to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) today elected Mr Nkosiyakhe Amos Masondo as Chairperson during the House’s first Plenary Sitting of the 6th Democratic Parliament. He takes over the role from Ms Thandi Modise, who was yesterday elected Speaker of the National Assembly for the 6th Parliament.
Mr Masondo joined Parliament in 2014 at the beginning of the 5th Democratic Parliament. He served as a co-Chairperson of the Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests and Chairperson of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence. He also served on the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and on the Joint Standing Committee on the Financial Management of Parliament.
Mr Masondo grew up in Soweto and was a founding member of the United Democratic Front and was imprisoned on Robben Island from 1975 to 1981. He held the position of mayor in the City of Johannesburg from 2001 to 2010.
The NCOP Plenary also elected Ms Sylvia Elizabeth Lucas as Deputy Chairperson. Ms Lucas has an illustrious history of leadership in the Northern Cape, in the African National Congress (ANC) and the ANC’s Women’s League. Before her appointment today, she served as the Premier of the Northern Cape since 2014 and had been a member of the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature since 2000, where she served on various Standing Committees. In 2009, she became the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) of Environment and Nature Conservation.
Ms Lucas became involved in political activities in 1980 while attending Carlton van Heerden High School in Upington and was one of the leaders of the rent boycotts in the Rosedale area in the early 80s. She has served in various capacities in the ANC, including as Acting Provincial Secretary of the ANC Women’s League in the Northern Cape and as a Provincial Executive Committee member.
Mr Seiso Mohai was retained as the Chief Whip of the NCOP, a position he filled after Dr Hunadi Mateme in the 5th Democratic Parliament in 2017. He has been a Member of Parliament, Free State delegate to the National Council of Provinces, since 2014. He has served in various positions, including Chief Whip of the National Council of Provinces, member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly, Chairperson of the Select Committee on Appropriations, Member of the Select Committee on Finance and the co-Chairperson of the Joint Standing Committee on the Financial Management of Parliament.
Mr Mohai also served as a Member of the Provincial Legislature in the Free State from 2001 and was the Chief Whip of the majority party. From 2004 to 2009, he was MEC of Public Works, Roads and Transport. Before that he served as a Member of Parliament in the National Assembly from 1999.
Mr Mohai has strong roots in youth politics dating back to his years in the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) and the South African Youth Congress (Sayco) in the 1980s. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Botshabelo Student Congress after the banning of Cosas in 1986. He served as regional Chairperson of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) in the southern Free State from 1991 to 1994, when he was elected to the youth league’s provincial executive. Here he held the position of political education officer until 1996. From then on he served in different structures of the youth league and the ANC.
He holds a Master’s Degree in Technology and Management and a post-graduate diploma in Management of Technology and Innovation from the Da Vinci Institute of Technology. He matriculated from Kgauho Secondary School, Botshabelo.
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