Deputy President Paul Mashatile has described the late Maggie Mathabatha as someone who dedicated her life to the socio-economic development of her people.
“We are also here, on behalf of government and the people of South Africa, to pay our last respects to a daughter of the soil, Mme Matlotlo Margaret Mathabatha, a liberation fighter in her own right, who spent most of her adult life dedicated to the socio-economic development of her people in the many leadership roles that she has played before and after the attainment of freedom and democracy in South Africa,” said Deputy President Mashatile.
The Deputy President attended the funeral service of Mathabatha at the Uniting Reform Church in Southern Africa in Polokwane on Friday.
The wife of Limpopo Premier Stanley Mathabatha passed away following a short illness.
The Deputy President said the Premier and first lady of Limpopo took up arms, under the auspices of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), the military wing of the then banned African National Congress, against an oppressor apartheid regime.
The Deputy President reflected on how she lent her voice and energies to the workers struggle waged by the Commercial and Allied Workers Union of South Africa (CAWUSA), of which she was a member and a leader in the 1980s.
While she left the retail sector, she was “never lost to the quest to build a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa.”
She went on to become instrumental in the founding and ultimate formation of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU). Her passion for education led her to enrol at the University of the Western Cape where she obtained her first higher qualification, a Bachelor of Arts degree, in 1991.
In 1992, she enrolled at the University of Limpopo, then called the University of the North, where she obtained a University Education Diploma. She went on to graduate with a Master’s Degree in Development from the University of Limpopo’s Business School, EDUPARK in 2011.
“Mme Maggie continued to be a shining light to both students and educators alike, providing a good example to her people in the manner in which she carried herself and how she imparted knowledge to those who sought it.”
Mathabatha also became a Member of the Diplomatic Corps, representing South Africa in Ukraine, where she served as Madam De-charge in the South African Embassy until she returned to South Africa together with her husband in 2013 when he was appointed as the Premier of Limpopo.
“As we bid farewell to our sister, mother and grandmother to some and a comrade, friend and colleague to many of us here, we would like to thank the Moshoeshoe and Mathabatha families for giving their daughter to the service of the people of Gauteng where Mme Maggie grew up, the people of Limpopo where she led the revolution and the people of South Africa as a whole in the struggle to defeat apartheid and build a better life for all.
“Your loss is our loss and the country is bereft of a dedicated care-giver and nurturer of a generation of our people.
“We have no option but to pick the baton and continue on a journey you started and led, for our people to be completely and finally liberated from the clutches of poverty, unemployment and inequality,” said the Deputy President. –SAnews.gov.za
