PHUTI MOSOMANE
PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to the late founding Speaker of Parliament, Frene Ginwala, who has died at the age of 90 after suffering a stroke two weeks ago.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa wishes to announce, with great sadness, that Dr. Frene Ginwala, founding Speaker of South Africa’s democratic Parliament and Esteemed Member of the Order of Luthuli, has passed away,” Ramaphosa spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said on Friday.
Ginwala passed away at her home in Morningside, Johannesburg, on Thursday night at the age of 90, after suffering a stroke.
“On behalf of the nation and of the legislative, executive and judicial components of the State, the President offers his sincere condolences to Dr. Ginwala’s family, her nephews Cyrus, Sohrab and Zavareh, and their families,” said Ramaphosa, sending condolences to her friends, colleagues and associates.
Born on 25 April 1932, Dr Frene Noshir Ginwala served the anti-apartheid struggle and South Africa’s democratic dispensation in a diversity of roles as a lawyer, academic, political leader, activist and journalist.
In 2005, she was honoured with the Order of Luthuli in Silver for her excellent contribution to the struggle against gender oppression and her tireless contribution to the struggle for a non-sexist, non-racial, just and democratic South Africa.
Ramaphosa said: “Today we mourn the passing of a formidable patriot and leader of our nation, and an internationalist to whom justice and democracy around the globe remained an impassioned objective to her last days.”
“Among the many roles she adopted in the course of a life she led to the fullest, Ramaphosa said the nation is duty-bound to recall her establishment of our democratic Parliament which exercised the task of undoing decades-old apartheid legislation and fashioning the legislative foundations of the free and democratic South Africa.”
“Many of the rights and material benefits South Africans enjoy today have their origins in the legislative programme of the inaugural democratic Parliament under Dr. Ginwala’s leadership, with Nelson Mandela occupying the seat of the first President to be elected by the democratic Parliament.””
Ramaphosa further said Ginwala epitomised the ethos and expectations of the then fledgling SA Constitution and played an important role in building the capacity of Parliament through the transformation of activists and leaders into lawmakers who were in turn able to transform our country.
She was influential and instrumental in shaping the advancement of democracy and the entrenchment of democratic political processes and fundamental socio-economic rights in the Southern African Development Community and the continent at large.
“We have lost another giant among a special generation of leaders to whom we owe our freedom and to whom we owe our commitment to keep building the South Africa to which they devoted their all,” said Ramaphosa.
DA Member of Parliament Siviwe Gwarube said Dr Ginwala presided over a Parliament that repealed many Apartheid pieces of legislation and was one of the contributors to and drafters of our Constitution.
“We mourn with the Ginwala family and friends on their loss of a national icon. Her legacy demonstrates what a strong and independent Parliament can do in bettering the lives of South Africans. May it be a guide to us all who have been elected to serve about the importance of the role of Parliament,” Gwarube said.
Ginwala’s family said she will be laid to rest at a private funeral.
Details of an official memorial service will be announced in due course.
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