Barbara Creecy

Barbara Dallas Creecy (born 17 June 1958) is a South African politician and former anti-apartheid activist who has been the Minister of Transport since July 2024.

She joined the National Assembly of South Africa in the May 2019 general election and thereafter was appointed to the cabinet by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

[3][4] He had been a member of the Communist Party and a pacifist conscientious objector during World War II; her mother, the daughter of two trade unionists, was also politically progressive.

[3] She became increasingly involved in activism while working with human rights lawyer Priscilla Jana, and she was a founding member of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983.

[2] She served a full five years in the sports portfolio, retained in that post after Paul Mashatile succeeded Shilowa as Premier in 2008.

[15][16] In 2018 Ferial Haffajee congratulated Creecy for having "cleaned up" the department and "run an efficient and innovative provincial treasury".

[24][25] However, although she initially made "a number of decisions that delighted environmentalists and conservationists," her ministry was frequently embroiled in political and legal disputes over environmental standards in the mining industry.

[28][29] Her supporters argued that the scope for environmental reforms was limited, given the political clout of the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy under Gwede Mantashe.

[31] In 2023, she and her Danish counterpart, Dan Jørgensen, were appointed by COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber to chair international political negotiations on the "global stocktake" of the Paris Agreement.

On 30 June, announcing his new multi-party cabinet, Ramaphosa appointed her to succeed Sindy Chikunga as Minister of Transport, in which capacity she is deputised by Mkhuleko Hlengwa of the Inkatha Freedom Party.

Creecy (with her successor Panyaza Lesufi ) accepting the United Nations Public Service Award in Seoul, Korea in June 2014