Minister of Housing (since 1999)
Member of the ANC NEC
Deputy Minister of Welfare in the South African Government (May 1994 - 14
January 1995)
Former deputy Head of the Department of International Affairs of the ANC (1993-1994)
Born in Sophiatown in March 1951, Mthembi matriculated from Sekano- Ntoane High School in 1970. Thereafters he enrolled at the University of the North (Turfloop). At the time Turfloop was one of the most politically active campuses. In June 1976 Mthembi graduated with a BA and a teachers diploma. However, shortly after graduating she left the country to join the African National Congress in exile. She worked as a radio journalist and as editor of Voice of Woman (VOW), a journal of the ANC's women's section.
In1989, after secretarial stints in the ANC mission for Nigeria and West Africa and in Sweden, she assumed duties as the organisation's chief representative for Germany and Austria. Following the unbanning of the ANC she returned to South Africa in October 1993, to serve as deputy head of the ANC's Department of International Affairs. In May 1994 she was named deputy minister of Welfare in the GNU before being promoted to minister of Housing on Joe Slovos death in January 1995.
Nkondo is also a poet. Her work has been published by the Congress of South African Writers in Flames of Fury in 1990, and she has also been published in Malibongwe Poets to the People and Kultur.
Became minister of Housing after the second democratic elections in June 1999.