Pretoria - Energy Minister Dipuo Peters has welcomed the appointment of Nosizwe Nokwe as chief executive officer of PetroSA.
On Thursday, Peters welcomed Cabinet's appointment of Nokwe to the post of President and CEO of the national oil company.
"The board is to be congratulated for demonstrating to PetroSA's peers that it is possible to find a competent woman to lead an oil company in this country. We expect her to serve as a role model for young women in the sector who can now see that the so called ceiling in liquid fuels has been broken forever," said Peters.
Last November, Nokwe was appointed as the Director General of the Gauteng Provincial Government.
Peters and the PetroSA board will introduce Nokwe to the public once she assumed her new role.
Nokwe, who has 14 years' experience in the oil industry, is one of the first African woman petrochemical engineers in the country. She holds an MSc in Chemical Engineering from the Moscow Institute of Oil and Gas, among others.
She will take over from current acting President and CEO Yekani Tenza.
Peters also announced the appointment of Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele who will assume the role of Chairperson of the Central Energy Fund (CEF) with effect from February 2012.
The former housing minister will take over as chairperson as the implementation of the new companies act looms for CEF's subsidiaries. Mthembi-Mahanyale will take over from outgoing chairperson Busi Mabuza.
CEF which is PetroSA's holding company is involved in the search for appropriate energy solutions to meet the future energy needs of the country, the Southern African Development Community and the sub-Saharan African region, including oil, gas, electrical power and solar energy among others.
