Langa Zita
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Langa Zita | |
|---|---|
| Member of the National Assembly | |
| In office June 1999 – May 2009 | |
| Constituency | Gauteng |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 7 December 1967 |
| Citizenship | South Africa |
| Party | African National Congress |
| Other political affiliations | |
Langa Zita (born 7 December 1967) is a South African politician and intellectual who represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1999 to 2009, serving the Gauteng constituency. A former regional organiser for the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and a former political education officer at the South African Communist Party (SACP), Zita has served all three wings of the Tripartite Alliance. He was a member of the SACP Central Committee from 1998 to 2002.
After leaving Parliament in 2009, Zita served as a special adviser to Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson and then, from 2010 to 2012, as her Director-General in the Department of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries. He left that position in September 2012.
Zita was born on 7 December 1967.[1] He was formerly the regional secretary of COSATU in the Witwatersrand and by 1995[2] was the national education officer of the SACP.[3][4]
In 1998, Zita was elected to the Central Committee of the SACP, the party's executive organ.[5] However, in his account, the leadership elected alongside him in 1998 – headed by Blade Nzimande – was dominated by "doctrinaire Marxist-Leninists" who were largely uninterested in promoting democracy or the renewal of the party.[6] He later said that, during this period, he was "purged" from the SACP's head office and the party abandoned the national political education programmes he had developed.[6][7]
Parliament: 1999–2009
Zita was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly in the 1999 general election and served two terms, gaining re-election in 2004. He represented the Gauteng constituency.[1][8]
Midway through his first term, at an SACP congress in 2002, Zita failed to gain re-election to the Central Committee; his critics said that, since joining Parliament, he had radically altered his views and become a supporter of President Thabo Mbeki's neoliberal Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policy.[9] However, he reportedly remained a close ally of COSATU secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi.[10]
During part of his second term in Parliament, he chaired the Portfolio Committee on Environmental Affairs and Tourism.[11]