Tito Mboweni has passed away
South Africa’s former finance and labour minister and first Black central bank governor Tito Mboweni died after a brief illness.
The presidency confirmed on Saturday evening.
“We have lost a leader and compatriot who has served our nation as an activist, economic policy innovator and champion of labour rights,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
Mbwoeni’s family said they were “devastated” and that he had died in a hospital in Johannesburg “surrounded by his loved ones”.
A former anti-apartheid activist, Mboweni spent almost a decade in exile in Lesotho where he attended university.
That was followed by a Masters degree from the University of East Anglia in the UK.
“I suppose you can call me an exile kid, and international kid born in South Africa,” he was quoted as saying in later years.
“But my home is in South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, the United Kingdom, Zambia, Angola, Tanzania, Swaziland, the USA, Switzerland, and everywhere I stayed in my youth. I hate narrow nationalism – I cannot stand it. I hate xenophobia.”
He returned to South Africa in 1990, then served as the first labour minister under President Nelson Mandela, playing a key role in shaping post-apartheid labour laws.
Tito Mboweni died at the age of 65.
