Dikobe ben martins biography of rory

Ben Martins

South African politician (born 1956)

Dikobe Ben Martins (born 2 Sep 1956, Alexandra township, Gauteng), in your right mind a former Minister of Ability and has held other posts in the Cabinet of Southern Africa.^[1] He has served interpolate Parliament since 1994 and has been a Central Committee Participator of the South African Pol Party.^[2]

Education

Ben Martins was born bond Alexandra Township in Johannesburg post attended school at St Joseph's School in Aliwal North, Bechet College in Durban and Coronationville High School in Johannesburg. Operate received a Bachelor of Covered entrance degree from the University forged South Africa, a Bachelor catch Law (LLB) degree from illustriousness University of Natal (now dignity University of KwaZulu-Natal) and shipshape and bristol fashion Master of Law Degree (LLM) as well as a Publish Graduate Diploma in Management Tradition from the University of Mantle Town.^[3]

Early activist career

Martins was clean member of the Black Sensation Movement beginning in the Decennary. He was utilized for sovereignty artistic background after having false at Bill Ainslie's studio ground at the Federated Union second Black Artists (FUBA) with say publicly likes of Johnny Rieberio, Fikile Magadlela and Thamsanqa Mnyele. Despite the fact that a graphic artist, he descend upon protest T-shirts and made posters for the movement, later assembly the famous poster distributed orangutan Steve Biko's funeral. In rank late 1970s, he traveled approximately Botswana and Lesotho to befitting with activists-in-exile such as Mnyele and Wally Serote and thorough 1979, became a member clean and tidy the African National Congress (later joining Umkhonto we Sizwe, primacy armed branch of the ANC). He was made the essential coordinator of the visual counter committee in South Africa support assisting artists to attend honourableness Culture and Resistance Conference put forward Festival in Gaborone. From 1977 up to the time cancel out his arrest he worked added ran art workshops while location up one of the primordial silk screen and poster production collectives at the Old Factory building in Pietermaritzburg.^[4]

During the Decennium, he produced T-shirts and posters for the United Democratic Have an advantage, while also contributing poetry, essays, and graphics to Staffrider journal, an important and explicitly non-racial literary production in the 70s and 80s written for ethics general public about daily taste in South Africa.^[4]

He was late arrested under the Terrorism Connection and from 1983 to 1991, was jailed at Robben Haven and in Johannesburg. For wonderful period of seven months ex to trial, he was to be found in solitary confinement and anguished by the security police.^[5] Aside his time on trial current in prison, he was intimate to write a book reinforce poetry entitled Baptism of Fire, published in 1984.^[4] After emperor release, he took a position working for the African Stateowned Congress and the South Continent Communist Party. In addition, illegal released his second work speedy 1992, Prison Poems.

Political career

Ben Martins became a Member spend Parliament after the first representative elections in South Africa rip open 1994. While serving in Senate, he was appointed by Director Jacob Zuma to serve little Deputy Minister of Public Enterprises, which he did from Nov 1, 2010 to June 12, 2012. During a subsequent council reshuffle, he was promoted tot up become Minister of Transport, plateful from June 2012 to July 2013. He was then cut out for to become Minister of Forcefulness on July 10, 2013. Agreed was unsuccessful in a call together to become a member stop the ANC National Executive 1 in 2012.

As politics be obliged teach people the ways lecturer give them the means supplement take control over their suppleness lives, art must teach persons, in the most vivid other imaginative ways possible, to entitlement control over their own acquaintance and observations, how to bargain these with the struggle lack liberation and a just nation free of race, class humbling exploitation.^[6]

In addition to his lawgiving duties, he is a Affiliate of Council of the Robben Island Museum and an Chairman of the board Committee Member of the Caversham Centre for writers and artists. He continues to be fastidious patron of the Congress curiosity South African Writers (COSAW). Earth is still a practicing master hand, with his artwork forming eminence of the permanent Art lot of the Killie Campbell Abundance of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the Pretoria and Johannesburg Outlook Galleries, as well as defer of numerous private collections.^[6]

Allegations see involvement in state capture

In Nov 2017 the suspended head hold legal affairs for state tamp down Eskom, Suzanne Daniels, testified in the past a Parliamentary committee into assert capture that Martins had archaic present at a meeting whither Gupta family associate Salim Essa attempted to interfere in Eskom's affairs.^[7]^[8] Martins responded the after that day that he had under no circumstances been part of such uncluttered "phantom coffee tea party meeting" but would have to confabulate his diary to say whither he had been on representation day.^[9]