Ms Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi

Geraldine Joslyn Fraser was born on 24 August 1960 in Lansdowne in the Western Cape. She matriculated from Livingstone High School in Claremont and started to study at the University of Cape Town with a teaching career in mind. However, in 1980 she left South Africa to join the ANC in exile in Zimbabwe. As a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, she received military training in Angola, the USSR and Cuba. In 1983 she married Jabulani Moleketi.

She served in the regional leadership of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in Zimbabwe until she was sent back to South Africa in 1990. Over the next two years she worked as national administrator for the SACP and was personal assistant to successive general secretaries Joe Slovo and Chris Hani. She was elected to the central committee of the party in 1991. She has served on this body ever since, and as deputy chairperson from 1998 to 2002.

She was elected to Parliament in 1994 where she served on the parliamentary portfolio committees on constitutional development and the sub-committee on rules of the National Assembly, in the latter as chairperson. In 1995 she became deputy minister of welfare and population development, a position she only held for a year until she took over the post of minister for the same department in 1996. In 1999 she was chosen as minister of public service and administration, a position she held until 2008.

Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi played a central role in policy development on the transformation of the welfare system in SA and mainstreaming of gender into government programmes. She led the process that culminated in the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women by the government. She participated and delivered papers in numerous events and conferences on social development, gender equality and transformation of public services. In 2006 she obtained a Masters degree in Public Administration from the University of Pretoria.