Trustee

Pallo Jordan

Pallo Jordan worked for the ANC in London and in African states. In 1982 he narrowly escaped the detonation of a letter bomb which the apartheid regime had sent to Ruth First and killed her.

 

In 1985, he was elected to the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC). He served as the administrative secretary of the NEC Secretariat (1985–1988), on the NEC’s Strategy and Tactics Committee as a convenor (1985–1989). On the NEC’s sub-committee on negotiations and the NEC’s sub-committee on Constitutional Guidelines and as the Director of Information and Publicity.

 

Jordan returned to South Africa after the unbanning of the ANC in 1990. Having already participated in the 1987 negotiations in Senegal, he was also a negotiator in the Convention for a Democratic South Africa.

 

In 1994, he was elected to be as a member of Parliament in the National Assembly for the ANC. He became the Minister of Posts, Telecommunications, and Broadcasting 1994 to 1996 and   subsequently the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in 1996.

 

In 1999, he served as Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the National Assembly. After the 2004 National Elections, Jordan was appointed Minister of Arts and Culture by President Thabo Mbeki, a post he held from April 2004 to May 2009.