News24 | Ramaphosa honours late former minister Sibusiso Bengu with official funeral service

Professor Sibusiso Bengu (Joyrene Kramer/Netwerk24)

• President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a Special Official Funeral Category 2 for late minister of education Sibusiso Bengu.
• Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said the funeral will be held at the University of Zululand in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday, 10 January. 
• Bengu died on 30 December 2024 at the age of 90.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared that late former education minister Sibusiso Bengu be honoured with a Special Official Funeral Category 2, the presidency said on Monday. 

Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said in a statement that Bengu, who died on 30 December at the age of 90, will be laid to rest in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Magwenya said: "President Ramaphosa has directed that the national flag be flown at half-mast at flag stations around the country from tomorrow morning, Tuesday, 7 January, until the evening of the funeral." 

The funeral will be held at the University of Zululand in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday, 10 January, with proceedings including ceremonial elements rendered by the South African Police Service, he added.

Ramaphosa reiterated his deep condolences to Bengu's family and friends. 

READ | Ramaphosa pays tribute to late 'pioneering leader' Sibusiso Bengu

Last week, the president paid tribute to Bengu, who was South Africa's first democratic minister of education. 

Bengu served as minister of education from 1994 to 1999, and then as South Africa's ambassador to Germany from 1999 to 2003.

In his tribute, Ramaphosa said: "Prof Bengu was a pioneering leader of our democratic dispensation and administration, who led the transformation of education in a democratic government of national unity where deep divisions existed about how far this transformation should go.

"Under apartheid, the injustice of unequal education had been at the core of consigning most citizens to inter-generational economic exclusion, poverty, and indignity." 

According to South African History Online, he began his career as a teacher in 1952, and then founded the KwaDlangezwa High School on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast in 1969, where he was principal until 1976.

He was appointed Director of Student Affairs at the University of Zululand in 1977 and became the first minister of education in 1994 during Nelson Mandela's presidency.