Edwin Tshivhidzo
17 May 2006
South African Public Works Minister Stella Sigcau has been buried at Qawukeni in the Eastern Cape, after a funeral attended by thousands of mourners, including President Thabo Mbeki, Cabinet ministers, parliamentarians, senior government officials, politicians and the local community.
Sigcau, who died on 7 May at St Augustine Hospital in Durban, was laid to rest alongside members of her royal family.
She was accorded an official funeral, which is reserved for serving ministers, the chief justice of SA, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, and premiers.
In his speech at the funeral, Mbeki traced the life of Sigcau from the 1950s, when she was a member of the African National Congress Youth League, to her political career as leader of the Transkei and, later, as minister of Public Enterprises and then of Public Works.
He described her as a national asset, a heroine and an activist with an "unselfish spirit".
Early this year, Sigcau requested the President to release her from her responsibilities as a minister from June.
She said she needed the months until June to ensure that the Expanded Public Works Programme was working effectively, particularly in its role in empowering women and young people, and its work of improving the economic and social infrastructure of rural areas.
Mbeki said Sigcau had planned to use her retirement working on the challenge of rural development.
"I am saddened by the fact that she departed the world of the living before she completed the tasks she had set herself … that death deprived her of the opportunity to don her working clothes and show the millions of our people what we mean when we say that the freedom we enjoy today has given all of us the possibility truly to determine our destiny," Mbeki said.
He said that in 1987, when the apartheid government proposed the establishment of a national council to negotiate a constitution to end "the deadly conflict then gripping our country", Sigcau - then prime minister of Transkei - publicly supported the ANC's demands in negotiations.
"Ever a woman of courage and principle, she reaffirmed that despite its so-called independence, the Transkei remained an integral part of South Africa and that any genuine negotiations had to be conducted with the genuine representatives of the people and had to focus on the transformation of our country into a united and non-racial democracy."
Mbeki said Sigcau stood out among her generation of fighters for liberation as a unique individual who was ready to serve.
"There are thousands who would speak of what Nkosazana Nomzamo Sigacu did as Public Works minister especially to empower women as building contractors and creators of the lived environment of good roads, modern sanitation and other social economic infrastructure," he said.
The funeral service was broadcast live by the SABC.
The national flag has been flying at half-mast from last Tuesday and a book of condolences was also opened at the Union buildings in Pretoria and Tuynhuis in Cape Town.
Source: BuaNews
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