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Cyril Ramaphosa

Also Known As Ramaphosa

Education

  • - Tshilidzi Primary School
  • Sekano Ntoane High School - Soweto
  • matriculated - Mphaphuli High School in Sibasa
  • law - University of the North (Turfloop) in Limpopo Province

Overview

Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa is a South African businessman and politician who is currently serving as the fifth democratically elected president of South Africa. Formerly an anti-apartheid activist, trade union leader, and businessman, Ramaphosa is also the president of the African National Congress (ANC).

Ramaphosa rose to national prominence as secretary general of South Africa's biggest and most powerful trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers. In 1991, he was elected ANC secretary general under ANC president Nelson Mandela and became the ANC's chief negotiator during the negotiations that ended apartheid. He was elected chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly after the country's first fully democratic elections in 1994 and some observers believed that he was Mandela's preferred successor. However, Ramaphosa resigned from politics in 1996 and became well known as a businessman, including as an owner of McDonald's South Africa, chair of the board for MTN, member of the board for Lonmin, and founder of the Shanduka Group.

He returned to politics in December 2012 at the ANC's 53rd National Conference and served as the deputy president of South Africa under President Jacob Zuma from 2014 to 2018. He was also chairman of the National Planning Commission. At the ANC's 54th National Conference on 18 December 2017, he was elected president of the ANC. Two months later, the day after Zuma resigned on 14 February 2018, the National Assembly (NA) elected Ramaphosa as president of South Africa. He began his first full term as president in May 2019 following the ANC's victory in the 2019 South African general election. While president, Ramaphosa served as chairperson of the African Union from 2020 to 2021 and led South Africa's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ramaphosa's estimated net worth was estimated at over R6.4 billion ($450 million) as of 2018. He has been criticised for the conduct of his business interests, including his harsh posture as a Lonmin director towards the Marikana miners' strike in the week ahead of the Marikana massacre.

On 19 December 2022 it was announced that the ANC's 55th National Conference had elected Ramaphosa to a second term as president of the ANC.

After he resigned from politics, Ramaphosa became a businessman, taking advantage of the conducive environment provided by the new Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy. Among other positions, he was executive chairman of Shanduka Group, a company he founded, which invested in mineral resources, energy, real estate, banking, insurance, and telecoms (SEACOM). By 2014, Shanduka was worth more than R20-billion, and the Ramaphosa family's Tshivhase Trust was its majority shareholder. Ramaphosa was also a chairman of Bidvest, MTN, and from March 2007, Mondi, a leading international paper and packaging group. His other non-executive directorships included Macsteel Holdings, Alexander Forbes, SABMiller, Lonmin, Anglo American, and Standard Bank. In 2011, Ramaphosa paid for a 20-year master franchise agreement to run 145 McDonald's restaurants in South Africa. He also belonged to the Coca-Cola Company International Advisory Board and the Unilever Africa Advisory Council.

Ramaphosa's various shareholdings made him one of South Africa's richest men. According to the Sunday Times, his estimated net worth of R2.22 billion made him the 13th richest person in South Africa in 2011, and that figure jumped to R3.1 billion in 2012. Both estimates, moreover, excluded his unlisted investments through Shanduka, including the McDonald's franchise agreement and a coal-mining partnership with Glencore 

Early Life

Ramaphosa was born in Soweto, Johannesburg, on 17 November 1952, to Venda parents. He is the second of the three children to Erdmuth and retired policeman Samuel Ramaphosa. He attended Tshilidzi Primary School and Sekano Ntoane High School in Soweto.In 1971, he matriculated from Mphaphuli High School in Sibasa, Venda where he was elected head of the Student Christian Movement. He subsequently registered to study law at the University of the North (Turfloop) in Limpopo Province in 1972.

While at university, Ramaphosa became involved in student politics and joined the South African Students Organisation (SASO) and the Black People's Convention (BPC). This resulted in him being detained in solitary confinement for eleven months in 1974 under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act, 1967, for organising pro-Frelimo rallies. In 1976 he was detained again, following the unrest in Soweto, and held for six months at John Vorster Square under the Terrorism Act. After his release, he became a law clerk for a Johannesburg firm of attorneys and continued with his legal studies through correspondence with the University of South Africa (UNISA), where he obtained his Bachelor of Procurationis degree (B. Proc.) in 1981.

Ramaphosa was married from 1978 to 1989 to Hope Ramaphosa, with whom he has a son, and from 1991 to 1993 to the now deceased businesswoman Nomazizi Mtshotshisa. In 1996, he married Tshepo Motsepe, a medical doctor and the sister of South African mining billionaire Patrice Motsepe. He is thought to have five children.

He owns a luxury mansion at the foot of Lion's Head in Cape Town, as well as 30 other properties. In 2018, Investing.com estimated his net worth at R6.4 billion ($450 million).

He is a polyglot, and is known for using a variety of South African languages when delivering his speeches.                                 

Career

  • President of South Africa - businessman and politician

Recognition

Ramaphosa received the Olof Palme Prize in Stockholm in October 1987. In 2009, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 2009, presented by Awards Council member Archbishop Desmond Tutu at a ceremony at St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town. He has also frequently been listed as an influential individual: he was voted 34th in the 2004 list of Top 100 Great South Africans, and was included in the Time 100 in 2007 and 2019.

He has received honorary doctorates from, among others, the University of Natal, the University of Port Elizabeth, the University of Cape Town, the University of the North, the National University of Lesotho, National University of Ireland Galway, the University of Massachusetts Boston, and the University of Pennsylvania.

State honours : 

 Guinea: Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (2019)

 Senegal: Grand Cross of the National Order of the Lion (2021)

 United Kingdom: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB, 2022) 

Reference

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