Barbara Creecy, the Minister of Transport, probably has one of the most stressful positions in government.
She’s not only in charge of the nation’s vast road network – ranked as one of the top 10 longest in the world – but also its railways and ports.
Affiliated with the African National Congress (ANC), Creecy has been active in politics for some 49 years and has held numerous roles in provincial and national portfolios.
Not-so-small beginnings
Born on 17 June 1958, Barbara Dallas Creecy grew up in Johannesburg, Gauteng.
Her father was a chartered accountant who emigrated to South Africa from the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, he passed away whilst Creecy was only eight, leaving her mother to raise her.
Creecy attended the prestigious all-girls Roedean private school in Parktown, Johannesburg, after which she would enroll at the University of Witwatersrand in 1976 where she achieved an Honours Degree in Political Science.
She subsequently completed a Masters Degree in Public Policy and Management with the University of London.
Creecy already became politically active while in university, joining the then-banned ANC in her final year of studies, 1979.
Come 1983, she was among the founding members of the United Democratic Front (UDF). According to NoseWeek, she would spend the following years working for the UDF’s Civic Desk and for a non-profit organisation that trained trade unions and community structures.
During the tense period of 1985 and 1986, Creecy worked closely with underground ANC operatives in Botswana in protest of the apartheid regime.
After losing contact with these individuals in 1988, she went to London where she was told that she was not allowed to come back to South Africa. This took her on a two-month trip to the Soviet Union, after which the ANC and other organisations were unbanned and she returned to local soil.
Creecy enters government
In South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, Creecy was voted to represent the ANC in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.
She would become one of the longest-serving members of the legislature, serving from 1994 until 2004 in numerous different portfolios including Deputy Chief Whip and Chairperson of the Social Development and Education Committees.
In 2004, she was appointed MEC for Sports, Recreation, Arts, and Culture; and was moved to the Education portfolio after the General Elections of 2009.
Here, she would pilot initiatives aimed at turning around underperforming schools, targeting 47,000 learners with extra classes for students over weekends and holidays.
A News24 report from 2011 revealed that of 276 high schools covered by the programme in 2010, an impressive 246 improved their results.
Her work impressed, so in 2014 she was pulled up to the honorous role of MEC for Finance, becoming the first woman to hold this position.
Here, she introduced the open tender system that required the public adjudication of tenders and independent probity audits to ensure procurement processes were above board.
Concurrently, she was at the helm of the Department of e-Government and an agency called Gauteng Infrastructure Financing Agency, earning her a reputation for modernising the public service.
Five years passed until Creecy would make her next move, which saw her become the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and Environment.
While there were controversies during her five-year tenure as the minister, mostly involving environmental activists and oil companies, Creecy generally ran a tight ship and made a few noteworthy calls such as blocking a proposal to the Meat Safety Act that would have allowed the commercial sale of lion meat, and introducing a new policy on biodiversity.
Now in the modern era, Creecy was appointed to steer the Department of Transport in June 2024 following the swearing-in of the new Government of National Unity.
Her portfolio now not only includes roads but, since late last year, also the country’s rail and ports.
Chief on Creecy’s fresh agenda is the rollout of the country’s new driver’s licence cards, which have been marred by controversy and delays.
She has already initiated a high-profile investigation into the tender for the new driver’s licence cards, the outcome of which should be made public soon.
Moreover, she has been tasked to turn around the country’s ailing ports, both for sea and air, and to revive the handicapped railways.
In this endeavour, she is urging more private-sector involvement within these sectors, and for airports, she has already ordered an overhaul of infrastructure and air traffic navigation services.
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