Bongani Bongo

Bongani Thomas Bongo (born 29 June 1978) is a South African politician and the former Minister of State Security, a position to which he was appointed on 17 October 2017 by President Jacob Zuma until he was relieved from the post on 28 February 2018 by President Cyril Ramaphosa. He was the only appointment that had not been a cabinet minister before. He served as President of the University of Limpopo's Alumni and Convocation Association between 2016 and 2022, and became its emiratus president soon after that. As the Minister of State Security, Bongo headed the State Security Agency of South Africa.

A lawyer and ANC politician from Mpumalanga, Bongo has been a member of Parliament since the May 2014 national elections, taking up roles in various portfolio committees, including the Constitutional Review Committee that was investigating the feasibility of changing Section 25 of the South African Constitution, the ad hoc committee on the amendment of Section 25 as well as the ad hoc committee that appointed Busisiwe Mkhwebane as Public Protector.

On 2 July 2019, Bongo was elected the chairperson of Parliament's portfolio committee on home affairs amid objections against his candidacy over allegations of State Capture involving the Gupta family. Bongo was nominated by the ANC's Musa Chabangu, a nomination which was seconded by another ANC parliamentarian Tidimalo Legwase. Bongo then accepted the nomination and won against the DA's proposed candidate Angel Khanyile. He is currently suspended by the ANC pending the finalisation of a corruption case at the Nelspruit Magistrates Court. Bongo was removed as the chairperson of parliament’s home affairs portfolio committee in August 2021 when the party decided to make changes to its parliamentary caucus list of chairpersons and whips.

Early life
Bongo was born on 29 June 1978 in Dennilton, now in Limpopo's Sekhukhune District Municipality and lying on Mpumalanga's provincial border. He matriculated at Kgothala Secondary School. He is the third of Thomas Bongo and Emily Makhanya's five children and the family in 1999 moved to permanently reside in the township of Siyabuswa, which is located in the Dr JS Moroka Local Municipality (Mpumalanga), while Bongo was studying law at the University of Limpopo.

2017 Zimbabwean coup
On 15 November 2017, Bongo and South African defense minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula arrived in Harare as President Jacob Zuma's special envoys to Zimbabwe's 2017 coup that deposed Robert Mugabe

Zuma had dispatched them in his capacity as chairperson of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to hold talks between Mugabe and generals from the Zimbabwe Defence Force (ZDF) who finally seized power from the late nonagenarian Zanu-PF nationalist leader's almost four-decade rule.

When they arrived at the Harare International Airport they were not allowed to leave the airport until the evening, when they were allowed to move to a hotel. On Thursday, 16 November, Mugabe was at Harare's State House to participate in talks with General Constantino Chiwenga, Bongo and Mapisa-Nqakula over a transition of power.

Later Bongo and Mapisa-Nqakula met with Angolan president João Lourenço, who was chairperson of the SADC's Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, to brief him on the Zimbabwean situation

Parliament's Section 25 committee
Bongo was a group leader of Parliament's ad hoc committee that was set up in July 2019 to amend Section 25 of the South African Constitution.

Called "Ad Hoc Committee to Initiate and Introduce Legislation Amending Section 25 of the Constitution", the 24-member committee elected Mathole Motshekga as its chair but when hearings were conducted across the country between February and March 2020 the committee was split into two groups to enable it to conduct the hearings countrywide at once, with one group led by Bongo and the other by Motshekga.

It was set up by the National Assembly "to amend section 25 of the Constitution so that expropriation of land without compensation is made explicit, as a legitimate option for land reform ".

The setting up of the review committee followed a report that the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) described as "complete farce" submitted to Parliament in November 2018 by the Constitutional Review Committee, recommending that section 25 of the Constitution be amended "to make explicit that which is implicit in the Constitution with regards to expropriation of land without compensation as a legitimate option for land reform, so as to address the historic wrongs caused by the arbitrary dispossession of land, and in so doing ensure equitable access to land and further empower the majority of South Africans to be productive participants in ownership, food security and agricultural reform programmes".

The ad hoc committee then began conducting public hearings asking people about the wording that they believed should be put when the piece of law is changed for land expropriation without compensation.

Bribery accusation and criminal charges
Bongo was accused of offering a bribe to Ntuthuzelo Vanara, who was evidence leader for Parliament's inquiry into state capture at Eskom. In an affidavit to speaker Baleka Mbete, Vanara alleged Bongo told him he had been sent by acting Eskom board chairman Zethembe Khoza to offer a bribe – “a blank cheque”, in Vanara's words – to stop the committee's investigation into Eskom. Mbete referred the matter to the joint committee on ethics. A case was laid against Bongo and on 21 November 2019 he was arrested in Cape Town and charged with corruption. But on 26 February 2021, Judge John Hlophe of the Western Cape High Court dismissed the case.

Bongo was also implicated in a Hawks investigation relating to alleged corrupt land transactions during his time as legal adviser in the Mpumalanga human settlement provincial department. Bongo and scores of government officials, a lawyer and businessmen were arrested in Nelspruit and faced over 60 counts of fraud and corruption. Amongst those arrested was senior government official David Dube and Bongo's younger brother Joel Bongo who allegedly got two luxury vehicles bought by the accused businessmen in the case who allegedly charged government inflated prices in the land deals. Bongo faced 3 counts of fraud and corruption but in June 2023 at the start of the trial, the state announced that it had dropped two of the counts due to lack of evidence linking him to the allegedly committed crime. He is now left with one count of corruption, which the state says is 'failing to combat crime' while he headed the department. All charges against his brother Joel were dropped on the same day.