Trevor Manuel is our Minister in the Presidency, in charge of the National Planning Commission.  He was born in Kensington, Cape Town in 1956, and attended the Harold Cressy High School.  He obtained a Diploma in Civil and Structural Engineering from what was then Peninsula Technikon (now Bellville Campus of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology), and worked as a civil engineering technician until 1981.  He later did the Executive Management Programme from Stanford National University, Singapore.

In his youth (from the mid-1970's), Trevor Manuel was a community activist, and became involved in the fight against apartheid.  He was involved in the founding of the United Democratic Front (UDF), and became part of the UDF National Executive on its launch.  As a result of his anti-apartheid activities, he was persecuted by the apartheid government.  He was banned in 1985, and was detained without trial repeatedly, for a total of 35 months from 1985 - 1990.

The ANC was unbanned in 1990, and Manuel was appointed Deputy Coordinator of the Western Cape.  In 1991, he was elected to the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC), and in 1992, he became head of the ANC's Department of Economic Planning. 

After the ANC won the 1994 election, Trevor Manuel was appointed Minister of Trade and Industry.  In 1996, he became Minister of Finance and served in this position for the next 13 years.  This made him one of the longest-serving Finance ministers in the world.  He was also widely regarded as one of the most competent Finance ministers world-wide.  Amongst other accolades, he was declared Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 1994.  In 1997, he won the Euromoney African Finance Minister of the Year. On May 6 2008, Minister Manuel became the first Chancellor of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology which incorporated his Alma mater.

After the 2009 national elections, he was appointed head of the National Planning Commission. Trevor Manuel has been married twice, and has 3 sons from his first marriage.  On 27 December 2008, he married Maria Ramos, the CEO of ABSA Bank.  He is a son of Cape Town of whom we can all feel proud.

For more information on Trevor Manuel, follow these links:
GCIS
Who's Who SA
Wikipedia
ANC

Last updated 06/01/2010