About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

De Lille, Patricia

Click here for list of interviews

Patricia de Lille has been involved in politics for the last quarter of a century. Her election as National Vice-President to The National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU) in 1988 put her in the highest position for a woman in the trade union movement. She was elected onto the National Executive of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1990. She led its delegation in the constitutional negotiations that preceded South Africa's first democratic election in 1994. In Parliament she was appointed Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Transport from 1994 - 1999, and was also made the Chief Whip of the PAC. She left the PAC in March 2003 and formed the Independent Democrats.

Patricia serves on the boards of the following organisations:

Ø. Fikilela HIV/AIDS Project

Ø. Age-in-Action, of which she is a Patron

Ø. Diocesan College, Bishops, where she is a council member

Ø. Nazareth House HIV/Aids Children, where she sponsors one child

Ø. St Josephs Home for chronically sick children

Ø. Helen Suzman Foundation

Ø. Impumelelo Innovation Awards

Ø. Caring Network

Ø. Nelson Mandela Children's Fund

Patricia is also the Chancellor of the Durban Institute of Technology (DIT) and is member of both the Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption and the African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption.  She was recently awarded the HIV/AIDS Activist Award from a Canadian based organisation, South African Women for Women. She was awarded the Freedom of the City of Birmingham, Alabama, US. She was recently awarded the honour of being one of the top five women in government and government agencies. In August 2004, her leadership skills and qualities were recognised and Ms de Lille was awarded the 2004 Old Mutual South African Leadership Award in the Category of Woman Leadership, as the first South African woman to form a political party of her own, campaign and win seats in the provincial and national parliaments.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.