Mkhacani Joseph Maswanganyi (born 14 April 1966) is a South African politician from Limpopo Province.
On 31 March 2017, after two years as a backbencher, Maswaganyi was promoted to Minister of Transport in the second cabinet of President Jacob Zuma.
[2] From 1997 to 2014, Maswanganyi represented his political party, the African National Congress (ANC), in the Limpopo Provincial Legislature.
In this capacity, in early 2002, Maswanganyi became the figurehead of a government campaign to change the names of major cities in the province, including by renaming the capital, Pietersburg, as Polokwane.
[7] The opposition Freedom Front said that it would protest the scheme through civil disobedience by withholding municipal property taxes.
[4][21] Just after midnight in the early hours of 31 March 2017, President Zuma announced a controversial cabinet reshuffle in which Maswanganyi was appointed to replace Dipuo Peters as Minister of Transport.
[23] In the immediate aftermath of the announcement, the national Automobile Association expressed concern about Peters's abrupt and unexplained dismissal.
[24] However, the Mail & Guardian was less surprised by Maswanganyi's promotion, noting that the ANC Youth League and Limpopo ANC had "long punted him for a position in the cabinet"; indeed, the newspaper said that he "may hold the record as the politician who has been most often tipped to be elevated to high office only to be passed over time and again".
[4] On 30 May 2018, ANC Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu announced that the party would nominate Maswanganyi to chair Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration.
[36] After his election, he told press that he would seek to ensure that longstanding investigations into misconduct at Steinhoff and VBS Mutual Bank would "reach a conclusion" during his tenure in the chair.