May 10, 2007
By Lucille Davie
WHEN Nandi Mayathula-Khoza retires from the City council, she wants to devote her energy to empowering women and youth with valuable skills, to enable them to take up leadership positions in local government.
Mayathula-Khoza, the Speaker of the council between 2000 and 2006 and now the mayoral committee member for community development, originally qualified to teach. She taught maths and science for three years before switching to politics and governance.
But it seems teaching is still her first concern, and the empowerment of women and youth.
"Teaching apparently is my love," she says, with a shy smile, belying the confidence with which she conducts herself in public. But she wouldn't want to teach in the traditional setting, in a classroom. "When I retire I want to mentor and coach women who want to aspire to be leaders in local government."
Mayathula-Khoza, a tall, elegant woman who always stands out at council functions dressed as she always is in stylish, colourful, ethnic outfits, feels that women bring different values to public life - like integrity, caring and sensitivity; like a pragmatic approach, giving the needs of children, the elderly and disabled more prominence; like being collaborative, participative and striving for empowerment of other women.
She had originally wanted to be a doctor, motivated by her sister's studying science, and the thinking that a knowledge of science could allow you to make bombs. "I felt I might as well learn science – I was very militant growing up," she says, referring to being a teenager in Soweto during the tumultuous 1970s, particularly when the township exploded in 1976.
It's hard to imagine the woman now being militant as a youngster – she's a model councillor, particularly to the other female councillors, who praise her contribution to their becoming successful politicians in what was once an exclusively male domain.
She completed her BSc degree in Swaziland, but after her parents died she did an education diploma and came home to start working.
Moving into politics
But Mayathula-Khoza soon moved into the NGO sector, where she undertook community education and taught development to people, some of whom are now members of parliament and mayors. "I trained them to take control of their lives - socially, politically and economically - and saw individuals improve for the better," she says.
This is one of the highlights of her career. In 1994 Mayathula-Khoza moved into serious politics and governance – she was deployed by the ANC as a municipal councillor and in 1997 became mayor of Soweto.
Like other women on the mayoral committee, she is modest. "I never thought I would become a mayor. I didn't apply - the ANC deployed me. Thank you to the ANC for this."
At 35, Mayathula-Khoza was a young mayor and she had to learn a lot very quickly. "I had to learn how to carry myself in public and how to represent citizens. I met a lot of foreign heads of state."
And much more - that her privacy was curtailed, and that she had a responsibility for caring for people and had to get to know what their needs were, and getting the council to respond to these needs, where possible.
"There were enormous needs, and only one structure with insufficient resources, compared to the northern council. But I really enjoyed the challenge of a mixed council. I ensured there was community participation. People had to learn to be part of the government."
Women's contribution
Mayathula-Khoza feels that having half the mayoral committee made up of women has made a difference to the way the city is run, and is in line with ANC policy. "Women think of the needs of other women and children, given that women are the major consumers of services," she says.
Whereas men "just think about infrastructure like having good roads", women "bring different values to public life".
"Men just think about putting the services in but we also need to think about how the community should own the services, respect them and look after them.
"Women speak the language of the community – they are sensitive."
Regarding a future female mayor, Mayathula-Khoza feels that the time has "always been right" for a woman to be the mayor of Joburg. But that doesn't mean she isn't pleased with the present mayor. "I am proud of our mayor. He is very sensitive to women, gender and youth issues. In fact, he led Salga's [South African Local Government Association] 50/50 Getting the Gender Balance Right campaign."
Johannesburg had a female mayor way back in 1945. Jessie McPherson, a housewife, became a member of the Labour Party in 1928 and in 1939 she won the seat for Rosettenville. In 1945 she was appointed mayor, a position she held for a year, the usual length of office until 1995, when it switched to six yearly terms.
Mayathula-Khoza says living through the 1976 uprisings in Soweto had an effect on her as a teenager. Her father was a well-known political activist and priest and she witnessed underground meetings in her home. "I could secretly hear from the discussions that we were struggling for freedom. We were, however, not allowed in these meetings because we were children."
Her father told her that "we shouldn't be happy with what we've got". She learned that everyone had to participate to achieve freedom. "Unity is power, we won't win otherwise. Black people in the main had to be determined and committed to the struggle for freedom."
Interesting portfolio
Mayathula-Khoza has a "huge but very, very interesting portfolio". It is focused on issues of "poverty and vulnerability in our community", in a society where a staggering 38 percent of the city's economically active population is unemployed.
Some 58 percent of women in the city earn less than R800 a month. Mayathula-Khoza's department, together with the infrastructure and finance departments, has a social package programme that has been running for the past two years, for those earning less than R1 500. They are invited to register to get help with payments for services like water, electricity, waste removal and assessment rates.
The indigent are also helped with food security. Instead of giving them food directly - and thereby making them dependent on hand-outs - Mayathula-Khoza says her department helps people to develop their own food gardens, with a view to becoming self-sufficient and even selling excess produce.
Her department links them up with the City's Food Bank, set up to help supply orphanages and old age homes.
A system of social funding for NGOs and community-based organisations that are already working to alleviate poverty is in place. A fund of R6-million has been established and is monitored by the community development committee to assess whether the people who deserve the money are getting it.
Mayathula-Khoza's department, together with the economic development department, also oversees a skills development programme in which artisan skills like plumbing and carpentry are taught. These artisans are then employed by the City in short-term jobs and encouraged to become self-sufficient, sourcing their own jobs or, ideally, setting up their own businesses.
Similarly, skills are taught through the arts, culture and sports department, with backing from the economic development department.
There is an emphasis, as you would expect, on women in Mayathula-Khoza's department. Her team is trying to reach women and children, particularly abused women and children, to teach them their rights and to inform them how they can benefit from programmes the City is running.
"We want to ensure women come to the front. We need always to ask how many women are benefiting from the programmes."
Mayathula-Khoza's other concerns are illiteracy, street children, migrant sex workers, immigrants and the disabled.
As well as imparting skills, her department runs programmes like sports and games tournaments, Arts Alive and annual carnivals, to make people feel included in city life. "It's important to give them a sense of belonging."
As if this is not enough, Mayathula-Khoza also chairs the 2010 Soccer World Cup mayoral sub-committee and oversees the running of the Civic and Roodepoort Theatres.
Multiple roles
She is a member of Salga, the ANC Women's League, the Valued Citizens' Board and the Multiparty Women's Caucus, and sits on the Rand Water Board, in addition to her council duties - she is also the mother of four. How does she juggle her time?
"I have time for everything," she smiles. "It's just a question of managing your time and balancing the roles."
And she manages her time in clever ways. Some of these duties are done on the weekends and in the evenings; some, like Salga, are incorporated into her day-time routine as they relate to her work. "It's a question of loving what you do and making quality time for it."
But it does mean she isn't getting enough time for study. Besides her BSc degree and education diploma, Mayathula-Khoza has a development management certificate from the University of the Witwatersrand and she is keen to complete her master's degree in management.
When asked why she feels she needs to get more qualifications, she answers that she feels she needs to update herself, to exchange experiences with other people, to use those experiences in the workplace.
High-achieving women
Mayathula-Khoza is one of five women on the mayoral committee, certainly on a par with the country's female high achievers. So what is the secret to being a high achiever? "Inner-self strength and power and being humble," she says.
But high achievers also have ambition, drive, determination, are assertive, sacrifice their time, persevere and, of particular importance to women, work as a team and listen to people.
For Mayathula-Khoza, being a high achiever involves influencing other women's lives for the better. The question to ask is: "How can I contribute so that other women are empowered?"
She says it is easy to be crushed by a negative environment but in these times she has been herself and has fallen back on her inner-self strength and power.
"High achievers balance being successful at home and at work. They really have to be strong. They must ignore the negatives and focus on their mission.
"I am grounded in the values of respect, honesty and integrity, especially given the repression of women in the past. "
Mayathula-Khoza says she is pleased but "not satisfied" with the role that the City of Joburg has played as a role model on gender issues. The City is one of the few in the country to have an equal number of male and female councillors - the first time in its history this has been achieved.
"I am pleased, given the human resources available. There is quite a satisfactory representation of women in administration and in higher positions."
She says that the City now has a human development strategy [pdf], including a women development strategy. "We have to empower women closer to where men are, to realise the equality enshrined in the Constitution. We are setting a trend."
Admitting that the City does not have strong gender structures, Mayathula-Khoza says a women's caucus and a gender committee are needed. Some women are still not happy with the attitude and stereotypes of men in management, who don't usually promote women.
"There are weaknesses in the system; gaps can be closed. And we are beginning to close them."
Mayathula-Khoza says there is a need for a gender co-ordinator in the City manager's office, whose duty will be to assess the policies and plans in place to check whether men and women are treated equitably. "It is one thing to be communicating, but policy needs to be translated into action, otherwise promotion for women will happen by chance."
A dynamic place
She was born in Joburg and although she lived in Swaziland as a student in exile, she came back to live in the city. "Johannesburg is a dynamic place to live in. It is a place of two worlds: the affluent north, and the poorer south. As the government we are beginning to close the gap through development. It's exciting to see the gap being closed."
Mayathula-Khoza is raising her four children here, although her family was originally from the Eastern Cape. "I love the climate here and the people – it is a place of migrants."
She has travelled the world – to China, the US, other countries in Africa and Europe - but there's no place like home. She now lives in Mondeor, next door to Soweto. "I didn't want to be far away from Soweto, which I left when I got married. But I still visit Soweto regularly."
Her leisure time is spent visiting friends and family in the township. She enjoys cooking on the weekends, with Sundays being family days – they go to church and back home, talk about the week and school, and prepare the day's meal together. Otherwise everyone takes a turn at cooking during the week, including her husband.
Amazingly, she finds time in her week for exercise – she goes to the gym, plays squash and is a beginner golfer. "I want to sharpen my golfing skills," she smiles.
It's time to leave Mayathula-Khoza's large, spacious office, immaculate in every detail, with the stand-up flagpole and flag next to her desk adding colour to the neutral, businesslike shades.
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