Flags to fly at half-mast for deputy minister
● Mineral resources minister Gwede Mantashe will today meet the family of his deputy, Bavelile Hlongwa, who died in a road crash on Friday.
The 38-year-old deputy minister was returning to Pretoria from the University of Limpopo, where she went to conduct an ANC Youth League programme, when the accident occurred.
Mantashe said Hlongwa had stopped her car to assist at another accident scene just after the Carousel tollgate on the N1 from Polokwane when it was hit by a truck. Four other people also died in the accident.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that Hlongwa will be given an official funeral and has ordered that all national flags fly at half-mast until she is laid to rest.
“The death of deputy minister Hlongwa is a devastating, untimely loss of a talented young leader who, alongside minister Gwede Mantashe, was playing an important and dynamic role in an important sector of our economy,” said Ramaphosa.
Mantashe lauded her as a brilliant deputy minister who was good at her job.
“I enjoyed the three months working with her. We were beginning to steer the department in a particular direction. She was very complimentary and not competitive as is always the case [with deputy ministers],” Mantashe said.
In a statement yesterday, the ANC said Hlongwa was prepared to place her own life at risk to ensure the poor and the downtrodden were taken care of. “As a movement, we are filled with a great sense of grief and shock to lose such a dynamic, educated, intelligent, fearless and selfless young woman who gave so much of herself, skills, time and life to the service of the people of SA and the ANC,” said secretary-general Ace Magashule.
Magashule said Hlongwa was about to be co-opted into the ANC’s national executive committee.
At the time of her death, Hlongwa was the convenor of the ANC Youth League in Gauteng. “Like her true self, she died doing what she believed in, lending a helping hand to those in need,” the league said.
Many other ministers and ANC leaders yesterday expressed their sadness at Hlongwa’s death. “Comrade Bavelile Hlongwa was writing her own chapter in South African history books, losing her so young is even more devastating because her story has now been cut so short,” tweeted state security minister Ayanda Dlodlo.
Minister in the presidency Jackson Mthembu said Hlongwa’s death had robbed the country and government of a fierce champion and uncompromising voice for young people.
Before being appointed deputy minister, Hlongwa was part of the National Youth Development Agency.
She studied at the University of KwaZuluNatal’s Howard College campus, where she obtained a BSc in chemical engineering.