The most obvious qualification of South Africa’s new sports and culture minister is that he once owned a string of nightclubs.
Yet Gayton McKenzie, a reformed bank robber who served seven years in jail, insists being “a sports fanatic” with an appetite for the arts — he once visited the Louvre in Paris — makes him an ideal fit for the role.
His inclusion in President Ramaphosa’s coalition cabinet followed a month-long haggling with opposition parties to keep the African National Congress in power. McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance (PA), which campaigned on an anti-immigration ticket that critics denounced as xenophobic and won nine seats in parliament, backed Ramaphosa’s second term.
In return, he had originally demanded the role of home affairs minister for his deputy and said youth unemployment could be halved by the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. He himself wanted to be police minister, where his experience as a gangster would help him tackle crime, he said.
Now, he has settled for sports, arts and culture in a 32-strong cabinet that was expanded for Ramaphosa to meet competing interests from factions in the ANC and ten other parties.
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The cabinet is bigger than those of many developed countries, including the US, Britain and Germany. Analysts said the cabinet size, plus 43 deputy ministers, risked the administration becoming too unwieldy to deliver policies and was a waste of public funds.
Cabinet ministers earn an annual salary of 2.5 million rand (£110,000) and have perks that include ministerial homes in the capitals Pretoria and Cape Town.
McKenzie, 50, said he would be donating his salary to charity. In his unlikely career trajectory from South Africa’s ganglands to government, the PA leader built a fortune.
He has described growing up poor in a gang-infested neighbourhood under apartheid. He was in and out of jail in his teens before being sentenced to 17 years when he was about 20 years old — a fate he welcomed. “Where we grew up, for a gangster going to jail was a badge of honour,” he said. “You’ve made your bones. It’s like the Ivy League.”
But behind bars, he vowed to reform and after serving part of a sentence for bank robbery, he got his first proper job with a security company. He became a motivational speaker at high schools, published books about his life and ventured into business with Kenny Kunene, a former cell mate, which included nightclubs and mining. McKenzie, with Kunene as his deputy, set up the PA in 2013 to serve his “coloured” community, which is concentrated in the Western Cape province where, during the election, it won support from the main opposition, Democratic Alliance.
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Until last year, McKenzie was mayor of a municipality in the province where he was accused of failing to account for 3 million rand (£127,000) raised at a gala dinner to pay for local improvements. He is co-operating with the investigation and has denied any wrongdoing.
After being sworn in to the cabinet by South Africa’s chief justice, McKenzie joked that the “last time a judge asked me to sit, it was for ten years”.
McKenzie also wants to champion the arts among young people. “Where we grew up, if you are an artist… then they look at you as a sissy,” he said.
