{"id":11654,"date":"2012-05-06T18:36:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-06T16:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=11654"},"modified":"2012-05-07T12:22:27","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T10:22:27","slug":"roy-padayachie-an-exemplary-leader-zweli-mkhize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/11654\/roy-padayachie-an-exemplary-leader-zweli-mkhize\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Padayachie an exemplary leader: Zweli Mkhize"},"content":{"rendered":"

Public Service and Administration Minister Roy Padayachie<\/a> was a leader, a community activist and struggle stalwart, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“He was an exemplary leader who served his people with dedication. He was a trusted community leader who served as a crucial link between various communities and government,” Mkhize said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Padayachie, 62, was found dead in his hotel room in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia by a colleague on Friday evening. He had been attending a meeting of the African Peer Review Mechanism.<\/p>\n

He joined the public service and administration ministry in October. He was former minister of communication and before that deputy minister of public service and administration.<\/p>\n

Mkhize visited Padayachie’s family over the weekend to pay his respects.<\/p>\n

“He is one of the struggle stalwarts that we will continue to celebrate for his personal sacrifice and tremendous contribution towards the struggle for a free, non-racial and non-sexist society.”<\/p>\n

He said the only fitting tribute to Padayachie was for the provincial government to continue working hard to bridge the digital divide.<\/p>\n

“This government inherited a system which still shows unbelievable imbalances in access to telecommunication services. We are running a risk of opening up a huge gap between information haves and have nots.”<\/p>\n

Access to telecommunication and broadcasting services was not only for personal development, but was also a tool for economic development, he said.<\/p>\n

“He was a hard worker, a strategic thinker, humble and had some much love for the people. He was a trusted comrade with whom we shared many ideas of how to take the struggle forward,” Mkhize said.<\/p>\n

On Saturday the presidency announced that Padayachie would be honoured with a category one official funeral.<\/p>\n

“This category of a funeral is reserved for ministers who are still serving in office,” said spokesman Harold Maloka in a statement.<\/p>\n

The burial would take place in Durban on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

National flags would be flown at half mast from Monday until Wednesday in honour of Padayachie and former co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister Sicelo Shiceka.<\/p>\n

Labour Minister Mildred Olifant would serve in Padayachie’s position until further notice.<\/p>\n

Padayachie’s remains arrived back in South Africa on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

“Minister Padayachie’s body was handed over to his family and loved ones after it arrived in Durban from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,” Maloka said.<\/p>\n

Olifant and representatives of the provincial government, representing President Jacob Zuma and Cabinet, joined the family.<\/p>\n

Zuma personally phoned Padayachie’s wife Sally Mudaly Padayachie to convey his condolences.<\/p>\n

Details of the burial would be communicated later by Minister Collins Chabane, who is the chairman of the inter-ministerial committee on State funerals, Maloka said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public Service and Administration Minister Roy Padayachie was a leader, a community activist and struggle stalwart, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize said on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[25,2654,2666],"class_list":["post-11654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-active","tag-roy-padayachie","tag-zweli-mkhize"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11654"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11656,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11654\/revisions\/11656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}