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Pemmy Majodina
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Majodina in June 2023
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| Minister of Water and Sanitation | |
| Assumed office 3 July 2024[1] | |
| President | Cyril Ramaphosa |
| Deputy | David Mahlobo Isaac Seitlholo |
| Preceded by | Senzo Mchunu |
| Chief Whip of the Majority Party | |
| In office 22 May 2019 – 14 June 2024 | |
| Deputy | Doris Dlakude |
| Preceded by | Jackson Mthembu |
| Succeeded by | Mdumiseni Ntuli |
| Member of the National Assembly of South Africa | |
| Assumed office 22 May 2019 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1968-12-24) 24 December 1968 (age 55) Sterkspruit, Cape Province, South Africa |
| Political party | African National Congress |
| Children | 9 |
| Occupation | Member of Parliament |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | Umkhonto We Sizwe |
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Pemmy Castelina Pamela Majodina (born 24 December 1968) is a South African politician from the Eastern Cape. A member of the African National Congress (ANC), she has been the Minister of Water and Sanitation since July 2024. Between May 2019 and June 2024, she was the Chief Whip of the Majority Party in the National Assembly of South Africa.
Majodina entered government in 1999 as a member of the National Council of Provinces, and between 2004 and 2019 she represented the ANC in the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature. Between 2008 and 2019 she held a series of five portfolios in the Executive Council of the Eastern Cape. She joined the National Assembly in the 2019 general election.
Majodina was born on 24 December 1968 in Sterkspruit, Cape Province. She studied Bachelors of Education at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) obtaining her degree in 1996 and enrolled for honors degree which she completed in 1998.[2]
Majodina served on the regional executives, the provincial executives and the national executives of the South African Student Congress, the African National Congress Youth League, the African National Congress Women's League, the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress. She was also an underground operative of uMkhonto we Sizwe.[2]
After the June 1999 elections, Majodina was sworn in to Parliament as a delegate to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). She represented the ANC as a member of the NCOP's Eastern Cape caucus.[3]
In the April 2004 provincial election, Majodina was elected to an ANC seat in the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature.[4] After her swearing-in she was elected as chairperson of the legislature's Portfolio Committee on Roads and Public Works.[2] She continued her extra-parliamentary work with the ANC, and in December 2006 she was elected to a three-year term as Deputy Provincial Secretary of the Eastern Cape ANC.[5]
She was promoted to the Executive Council of the Eastern Cape in August 2008, when Mbulelo Sogoni took office as Premier of the Eastern Cape; he named Majodina as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Health.[6] After the April 2009 provincial election, Noxolo Kiviet became Premier and appointed Majodina as MEC for Roads and Public Works. In November 2010, Kiviet moved Majodina to the Social Development and Special Programmes portfolio.[7]
Phumulo Masualle was elected Premier after the May 2014 election. He appointed Majodina as MEC for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture.[8] While she was in that office, she was investigated by the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, on charges of misappropriating public funds during an official visit to New York in September 2012. Madonsela's report, completed in April 2015, found that Majodina had accepted an inappropriately large spending allowance during the visit and recommended that Masualle should take disciplinary steps against Majodina.[9] She later paid back the funds.[10]
In December 2017 Majodina attended the ANC's 54th National Conference, where she was elected to the party's National Executive Committee. By number of votes received, she was ranked 74th of the committee's 80 ordinary members.[11]
In May 2018, Masualle appointed her MEC for Public Works.[12]
After the May 2019 elections, Majodina was elected to return to Parliament as a Member of the National Assembly. The National Executive Committee of the African National Congress named her the party's chief whip in the National Assembly, and she assumed the position upon her inauguration. She was the second woman to hold the post, with Doris Dlakude as her deputy.[13][14][15] She was the first woman to hold the office,[16] and she warned the ANC caucus to "move faster and better because we don't have time to play around".[17]
In June 2023, Public Protector at the time, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, laid a complaint against three ANC MPs, Majodina, Richard Dyantyi and Tina Joemat-Pettersson with Parliament's Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interests. This came after Mkhwebane's husband alleged that Joemat-Pettersson approached him for a R600 000 bribe for the three to influence the outcome of the Section 194 Enquiry into the fitness of Mkhwebane to hold office; he also laid a complaint with the police.[18] The Committee cleared Dyantyi and Majodina, saying the claim was unfounded.[19]
Majodina was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in community development from the Arlington University of Australia in 2010. The next year, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa gave her their Reverend Baartman Award. In 2015, Reverend Jesse Jackson awarded her with a Global Humanitarian Award.[2]
Majodina has nine children, of which seven are adopted and two are biological. She is estranged from her husband. Majodina is a Christian.[2]
The chief whip will be making a comeback to Parliament, having served in the National Council of Provinces from 1999 to 2004 before making her way to the Eastern Cape government, where she was deployed in five different departments.
