Zuma saddened by the passing of Minister Padayachie

Pretoria - President Jacob Zuma has announced with regret the tragic and untimely passing of Minister of Public Service and Administration, Roy Padayachie.

The minister passed away in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he was attending the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) meeting of the Select Committee of Focal Points which kicked off on Friday. 

"On behalf of myself, the Cabinet, Government and the people of South Africa, I would like to express our inner most sense of loss and despair at the passing of Minister Padayachie," said Zuma in a statement on Saturday.

"I know no life of his spent outside the pursuit of the goal of a democratic, free, united and prosperous South Africa. It is sadly a great measure of his dedication and personality that he was to meet his destiny and fate in pursuance of a better Africa and a better world, a goal he dedicated his entire life for it to be realised and achieved," said the President.

He said no amount of words could express the loss that the Government and people of South Africa felt at the passing of Padayachie.

"We have lost a worker, an academic, a cadre and a soldier for a better South Africa, may his family be consoled by the work he has done for the country and its people," said Zuma.

The minister, said the Presidency, has served the country and the governing African National Congress (ANC) for many years. 

He was born on 1 of May 1950 and joined the ANC in 1972. A Microbiologist at Reckitt and Colman from 1976 - 1979, he also worked as Research chemist at Shell Chemical (1979 - 1980), while working underground as an ANC operative. He was a Trustee of the Transitional National Development Trust (TNDT) serving on its Audit and Finance Committees and its Policy Advisory Group for the establishment of the National Development Agency (NDA).

Padayachie served as Executive Member of the Natal Indian Congress and Executive Committee member of the United Democratic Front in KwaZulu-Natal. He was later to distinguish himself as a Member of ANC KwaZulu-Natal negotiating Team at Congress for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). 

A business consultant, he strove to champion the small, medium and micro enterprises until he was appointed Deputy Minister of Communications of the Republic of South Africa in April 2004 and Deputy Minister of Public Service and Administration in 2010.

The minister had been attending the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Focal Point Select Committee meeting. The APRM Focal Points are ministers or high-level country officials who report directly to their respective Heads of State or Government. 

It was the committee's first meeting following its meeting in April to develop the Operating Procedures for the APRM. - BuaNews