Andries Carl Nel

Andries Carl Nel is the Deputy Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, responsible for provincial and local government of the Republic of South Africa; a position he was first appointed to on 9 July 2013, and re-apppointed to on 26 May 2014.

He has been a Member of Parliament for the African National Congress (ANC) since 1994. Mr Nel holds a Bachelor of Civil Law from the University of Pretoria.

Mr Nel served as Whip of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and was the House Whip from 2000 to 2002. Between 2006 and 2007, he served as Acting Chief Whip of the ANC and as a chairperson of the House of the National Assembly between 2008 and 2009.

He has served as Deputy Chief Whip of the ANC from 2002 to 2008, a member of portfolio committees on Justice and Constitutional Development, Correctional Services, Health, Home Affairs, Communications, and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

He has also served in various ad hoc committees, as well as internal parliamentary committees such as the Rules, Joint Rules and Programme Committees, the Chief Whips’ Forum and Parliamentary Oversight Authority.

Mr Nel has been involved in the National Union of South Africa Students, South African Student Press Union, Students for a Democratic Society, Students for Human Rights and the End Conscription Campaign. He was active in politics since high school in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

He served on the Constitutional Assembly Committee dealing with the judiciary and legal system and was a coordinator of the Legal and Monitoring Team and ANC National Elections Team.

Mr Nel was a member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC Youth League from 1996 to 2001; coordinator of the Lawyers for Human Rights’ Capital Punishment and Penal Reform Project from 1990 to 1994, and a member of ANC structures at branch and regional level in the Pretoria area.