Ramatlhodi takes over hot minerals portfolio

Ngoako Ramatlhodi. Picture: Timothy Bernard

Ngoako Ramatlhodi. Picture: Timothy Bernard

Published May 26, 2014

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Johannesburg - Ngoako Ramatlhodi takes over from Susan Shabangu as minister for the Department of Mineral Resources, a portfolio which is a hot seat, given the platinum strike that has been going on for almost four months.

He was born on August 21, 1955, was deputy minister of correctional services in the outgoing government and is a former premier of Limpopo. He enrolled for the Bachelor of Jurisprudence at the University of the North in 1977 and studied there until 1979. Thereafter he went into exile in Lesotho, where he found life extremely lonely until he enrolled for a BA law degree and subsequently completed his LLB in 1986, when he came first in his class. He left Lesotho in 1986 when prime minister Leabua Jonathan was dethroned in a coup.

Ramatlhodi is currently a member of the national executive committee of the ANC. He is known to be a staunch supporter of President Jacob Zuma.

He controversially defended the ANC and Zuma in October 2012 when addressing ANC members during the Oliver Tambo Memorial Lecture at the Bloemfontein City Hall.

According to the Mail & Guardian, he said the ruling party was not leaderless as some had claimed.

He said those who called Zuma a “moron and an imbecile and not an intellectual were not aware that the man operated within a collective”.

He was reportedly a subject of a corruption probe by the Scorpions in 2008 involving Cash Paymaster Services, whose empowerment partner was Northern Corporate Investment Holdings. He was alleged to have been assisted by Northern Corporate to buy property, including the so-called Pumpkin Palace, a mansion near Tzaneen in Limpopo, for R1 million.

The company allegedly gave him kickbacks for benefiting from a provincial grants contract while he was premier.

He was apparently turned down as an advocate because of the alleged probe.

The Chamber of Mines said it would comment today. - Business Report

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