The late Elias Ginindza will be remembered for the foundation he laid.
Mpumalanga legislature speaker Thandi Shongwe has paid tribute to the first speaker of a democratically elected SA government who died at 83 a week ago.
Elias Ginindza was the speaker of the Mpumalanga legislature between 1994 to 1998.
Current speaker Shongwe said Ginindza “laid a true and formidable foundation of the Mpumalanga provincial legislature to what it is today”.
“His role – that of establishing the first Mpumalanga provincial legislature during the transitional period leading to the new democratic dispensation cannot be forgotten in the history of the province and the nation as a whole,” Shongwe said.
“He remained a point of reference and an icon of hope in the province of Mpumalanga even during his retirement, until his time of ultimate rest,” she said.
Ginindza was laid to rest in Barberton the past weekend (22 Apr) following his death last week (18 Apr).
Ginindza was supposed to leave office after the 1999 general elections but a corruption scandal that involved the chowing of R1 million from the state coffers of the Mpumalanga legislature cost Ginindza his job.
A commission appointed by then Premier Mathews Phosa to probe the matter found that the looting occurred under his watchful eye and the ANC then removed Ginindza as speaker.
(edited by ZK)
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