Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) Director-General, Phumla Williams, could not hold back her tears when she arrived at the residence of the late Minister in the Presidency, Jackson Mthembu, in Ackerville, Witbank.<\/p>\n
Williams led a drive-by visit by the management of departments and entities led by the late Mthembu on Friday afternoon in line with strict Covid-19 protocols.<\/p>\n
The departments and entities which reported to the late Minister included The Presidency, GCIS, the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Brand South Africa, Media Development and Diversity Agency, National Planning Commission, and Statistics South Africa.<\/p>\n
Paying tribute to the late Mthembu, an emotional Williams said government was greatly saddened by the news of his passing.<\/p>\n
Struggling to hold back tears, Williams thanked Mthembu\u2019s family for allowing him to work for the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cMthembu worked very hard in everything he did. He gave us direction and didn\u2019t have pride. He gave us the opportunity to voice our views on how we can make government work better for the people. Where we made mistakes, he pointed them and guided us accordingly,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
A senior official from National Planning Commission said he had never had a leader like Mthembu.<\/p>\n
He was the people\u2019s person, even before he became a leader.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe loss of a leader with such rare qualities is a loss to the country. His neighbours should be proud because Mthembu was a leader who did good things for the people. Rest in Peace Mvelase,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Officials laid wreaths at Mthembu\u2019s residence and recorded their messages of condolence in the condolences book placed on the table outside the house.<\/p>\n
The Presidency has meanwhile confirmed that Mthembu will be honoured with an Official Funeral Category 1 on Sunday, 24 January 2021. Proceedings will commence at 09:00. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) Director-General, Phumla Williams, could not hold back her tears when she arrived at the residence of the late Minister in the Presidency, Jackson Mthembu, in Ackerville, Witbank. Williams led a drive-by visit by the management of departments and entities led by the late Mthembu on Friday afternoon in line […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-178079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}