- mbali@unizulu.ac.za
- Hosted by Faculty of Commerce, Administration and Law
- 5 to 8 Aug 2024
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Dr Phosa qualified with a BProc and LLB from the University of the North. He was invited by former Nobel Peace Prize recipient, the late Elie Wiesel, to accept a PhD in Law at the Boston University, Massachusetts, United States of America. (Doctorate in Law, Honours Causa) (September 1995).
Dr Phosa opened the first black law practice in Nelspruit in 1981 and worked as a partner until 1985 when he was forced into exile. While in exile, he underwent political and military training, after which he became the Regional Commander for Umkhonto we Sizwe, the then military wing of the African National Congress (ANC) in Mozambique. He was one of four ANC members to be sent back to South Africa in 1990 to start the negotiation process with the former government whereafter he played a prominent role in the processes to establish a peaceful transition to a fully democratic South Africa. Dr Phosa was appointed the first Premier of Mpumalanga in 1994 by the late President, Mr Nelson Mandela.
Following the elections in 1999, he resigned his seat in parliament in favour of focusing his attention on his business career. He re-entered the political arena in 2007 when he was elected Treasurer-General of the ANC until December 2012. Dr Phosa is among South Africa’s longest-serving university Council Chairpersons. He was Unisa’s Council
Chairperson from 2003 to 2015, appointed by all three merging institutions and endorsed by the then Minister of Education, Kader Asmal to chair Unisa’s Council through a particularly challenging phase: the 2004 merger of Unisa, Technikon SA and Vista University’s Distance Education Campus. Phosa’s background as a negotiator made him more than equal to the task.
Dr Phosa served on the board of Special Olympics International and is Chairperson of Special Olympics South Africa. He has been instrumental in awakening the movement in South Africa since 2006. SOSA is an NPO founded to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.
Commercially, Dr Phosa sits on the boards of a number of companies such as Jubilee Platinum, Value Group, Phosa Loots Inc Attorneys, Merensky Timber, Phosa Legacy Group, Frans Schutte & Mathews Phosa inc, M3P Mining, and Rubic Consortium (a company established to produce cost effective vaccines in South Africa, the Continent and globally) to name a few.
Dr Phosa was nominated by the people of Mpumalanga, from various NGOs/NPOs, operating under a collective called Mpumalanga NPO Association, to receive a lifetime award in the form of an annual race called the Dr Mathews Phosa Marathon. The inaugural race is to be held on 24 February 2024 in White River, Mpumalanga.
Dr Phosa is a prolific author who speaks nine languages and has two anthologies in Afrikaans poetry to his name under the title “Deur die oog van ‘n naald” – some of which have been prescribed in the school curriculum for our national matric syllabus. Phosa launched an English anthology called “Chants of Freedom” on 2 June 2015. Dr Phosa is currently writing two books on the history of South Africa.
QUOTE:
“We must learn to talk to each other in our country, in a barefoot, calm, loving way that will restore trust between people and build bridges where it has been destroyed by ideological nonsense” … Mathews Phosa
