Jeremy Cronin

Mr Jeremy Cronin is the Deputy Minister of Public Works of the Republic of South Africa a position he was appointed to on 12 June 2012 and re-appointed to on 26 May 2014.

He is a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC); Deputy General-Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) since 1995, and a member of ANC in Parliament since 1999.Mr Cronin holds a BA degree from the University of Cape Town and a Master of Arts degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France.

Mr Cronin was a lecturer at the University of Cape Town from 1973 to 1976 and from 1984 to 1987, he was a Political Education Officer of the United Democratic Front in Cape Town.

From 1988, he held various positions in the ANC. In 1990, he was a political officer of the SACP and a member of the negotiating team at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa multi-party negotiations from 1991 to 1993.

From 1993 to 1994, Mr Cronin was a co-convenor of the Reconstruction and Development Programme Drafting Committee; and he was editor of the African Communist Magazine.

Prior to his appointment as Deputy Minister of Public Works, Mr Cronin was Deputy Minister of Transport of the Republic of South Africa from May 2009 to 1June 2012.

In 1975, Mr Cronin was editor of Ideologies of Politics; and in 1985 he authored 30 Years of Freedom Charter. Mr Cronin’s first book of poetry, Inside, was published in 1984 following his release from prison. In 2006, he published a collection of his poetry, titled More Than a Casual Contact. Other poems and collected poems include: Motho Ke Motho Ka Batho Babang, Even the Dead: Poems, Parables and a Jeremiad (1997) and Inside and Out (1999).

In 2006, he co-author 50 Years of the Freedom Charter with Prof. Raymond Suttner.