Zukisa Faku

Zukisa Cheryl Faku (born 1965) is a South African politician and convicted fraudster from the Eastern Cape. A member of the African National Congress, Faku had served as the mayor of the Buffalo City Local Municipality. In 2013 she was elected to take up a seat in the National Council of Provinces. The following year, she was elected to the National Assembly of South Africa. Faku was convicted of fraud in 2016 but remained a Member of Parliament. She resigned from parliament shortly after her re-election in 2019.

Zukisa Faku
Member of the National Assembly of South Africa
In office
21 May 2014 – 5 July 2019
Succeeded byPrincess Faku
Permanent Delegate to the National Council of Provinces from the Eastern Cape
In office
25 April 2013 – 6 May 2014
Personal details
Born1965 (age 57–58)
Duncan Village, South Africa
Political partyAfrican National Congress
ProfessionPolitician

Early life

Faku was born in Duncan Village outside East London in 1965. When she was five years old, she and her family were forced to relocate to the Mdantsane township due to the Group Areas Act instituted by the white minority government. She later trained to be a teacher and worked as one until she became involved in politics.[1]

Political career

Faku was an ANC councillor and served as the mayor of the Buffalo City Local Municipality until the 2011 municipal elections. In April 2013, Faku was selected to go to the National Council of Provinces, the upper house of the South African parliament, to fill the casual vacancy that arose following the resignation of Siphiwo Mazosiwe.[2] A year later, Faku was elected to the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, in that year's general elections.[3] She was appointed to both the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources and the Portfolio Committee on Energy, of which she was made whip.[4]

In March 2016, Faku was convicted on nine counts of fraud and theft‚ stemming from her tenure as mayor when she used her official municipal credit card for personal purchases while on business trips to Turkey and within South Africa in 2009. Faku maintained that she was unaware that she was not allowed to use the credit card for private purchases.[5] In September, Faku was sentenced to three years of house arrest and community service at an old-age home in Cambridge.[6] The ANC welcomed her sentencing with ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu saying that Faku could no longer continue serving as an MP because of her criminal conviction.[7]

Faku then began a process of appealing the ruling and continued serving as an ANC MP until the 2019 general election where she was re-elected to a second term in the National Assembly.[8] Faku was then named the ANC's nominee for chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education, but her nomination was later withdrawn and the former Northern Cape MEC for Sports, Arts and Culture Bongiwe Mbinqo-Gigaba was selected to be committee chairperson.[9] Faku resigned from Parliament on 5 July 2019, less than two months after the election, after the ANC forced her to resign despite her ongoing appeals process.[10] The Democratic Alliance, the official opposition in parliament, called for a probe into how Faku was elected as an ANC MP in the May election, in spite of her fraud conviction.[11]

References
  1. "Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality | Previous Mayor Profile". www.buffalocitymetro.gov.za. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  2. "SA: Statement by Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature, on the appointment of a new permanent delegate to the National Council of Provinces (25/04/2013)". www.polity.org.za. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  3. "2014 elections: List of ANC MPs elected to the National Assembly - DOCUMENTS | Politicsweb". www.politicsweb.co.za. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  4. "Zukisa Cheryl Faku". People's Assembly. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  5. "Former East London mayor guilty of credit card fraud". TimesLIVE. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  6. "House arrest for ex-BCM mayor". DispatchLIVE. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  7. "Corruption won't be tolerated - ANC welcomes Faku fraud sentence". News24. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  8. "SEE: These are the people who will represent you in Parliament, provincial legislatures". News24. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  9. "ANC withdraws convicted fraudster's nomination to chair Parliament's basic education committee". News24. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  10. Ndenze, Babalo. "Convicted fraudster Zukisa Faku resigns from Parliament". ewn.co.za. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
  11. "DA wants probe into how Zukisa Faku became MP with fraud convictions". TimesLIVE. Retrieved 2023-01-15.
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