Constance Simelane
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Her Excellency the Right Honourable Constance T. Simelane |
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|---|---|
| Deputy Prime Minister of Swaziland | |
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In office 2006–2008 |
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| Monarch | Mswati III |
| Prime Minister | Themba Dlamini |
| Education minister | |
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In office 2003–2006 |
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| Monarch | Mswati III |
| Prime Minister | Themba Dlamini |
| Personal details | |
| Political party | None |
Constance Simelane is a Swaziland politician who rose to become the first female Deputy Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Swaziland. Appointed to the Senate in 2001, Simelane became Minister of Education in 2003. In October 2006 Simelane was appointed Deputy Prime Minister by King Mswati III, succeeding Albert Shabangu who had died a month earlier.
Simelane was born to Funwako Simelane, a teacher from Swaziland and his wife Judith (nee LaNkonyane). Judith, who was born in Amsterdam, Mpumalanga in South Africa, met Funwako, who was originally from the KoNtshingila community of Shiselweni while he was teaching at Kington High School in Vryheid, South Africa. The two married in 1940, after Judith had finished high school. Simelane was the second eldest of six children. Her elder sister, Thandiwe Dlamini, was the longest serving executive director of the Red Cross in Swaziland. She has two other sisters, Nomcebo and Zandile and two brothers, Dumisa and Sifiso.
In 1958, under an order by King Sobhuza II of Swaziland, Simelane's father was recalled to Swaziland to work in the district capital. He taught at a number of high schools before becoming an ambassador for a number of countries, returning to Swaziland to act as a minister for finance. He died in 1980.
After leaving high school Simelane gained a scholarship from the African scholarship program of American Universities and became a student at Roosevelt University in Chicago where she studied for a degree is social sciences. From Chicago she undertook a Master of Business Administration from the University of Washington before studying advanced purchasing strategies in Austria.
Simelane worked as a credit researcher in Chicago. Before moving back to Swaziland where she took on the role of assistant secretary in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office. She then moved to Ethiopia where she worked for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa.
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