PROFILE OF MEC FOR COMMUNITY SAFETY KHABISI MOSUNKUTU

Born 59 years ago, Khabisi Mosunkutu moved to Gauteng at an early age and matriculated from Musi High School in Soweto in 1970. Having always been fascinated by maths and physics, he first worked at motor manufacturing and laboratory equipment companies before becoming one of the first Telkom recruits to be trained as a telephone mechanic.

Around 1977 he and several colleagues initiated the establishment in Telkom of a union - then euphemistically called a liaison structure. In 1981 he was detained, together with four other comrades and subjected to solitary confinement and the notorious interrogation methods in terms of Section 6 of the Act against Terrorism.

At the time of the United Democratic Front's ground breaking initiatives, he joined the Soweto Civic Association, a "very powerful base for mass mobilisation and political schooling".

By 1986, the Post and Telecommunications Workers Union (Potwa) was formally launched, with Khabisi as its first secretary. It became the biggest of the four associations in the sector and one of the affiliated unions in Cosatu.

Later posts included deputy president of the UDF in Southern Transvaal . During a further period of solitary confinement, he was elected president of Potwa. He was an Executive Member of the Soweto Civic Association and the Reception Committee during preparations for the release of the national leadership, including the release of Walter Sisulu, Elias Motsoaledi, Edward Mlangeni, Raymond Mhlaba and Ahmed Kathrada. He recalls the "incredible sight" of Madiba emerging from Victor Verster Prison and the "pure magic" of shaking his hand for the first time - much later.

Selected to sit in Parliament, Khabisi served on the Post and Telecommunications, Labour, Housing and Trade and Industry committees. At Gauteng Legislature in 1995, he chaired the Public Transport, Roads and Works Committee until his appointment as MEC for that portfolio in 1999. The following four years were dominated by plans for the Gautrain and an extended period of taxi violence during which Khabisi played a pivotal role in reducing the power of the taxi "warlords".

In 2004, he was appointed MEC for Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, where he maintained a commitment to "finding a balance between the environment and development" and to effective management of sustainable resources. In 2009, he was then appointed MEC for the Department of Community Safety

He is currently reviewing his course in economics with the London School of Economics.

For the man who does not have the word 'impossible' in his vocabulary, science is still a large interest, and he reads all he can on the subject, whilst spending the remainder of any spare time he has watching soccer and being with his three adult children and one teenager. He has one dream that he is determined to make reality - to shake the hand of theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking.