Manne Dipico

Manne Emsley Dipico, first Premier of the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, was born in Kimberley on 21 April 1959. He was appointed Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) in 2006. He is Chairman of Ponahalo Holdings (De Beers Group) and Deputy Chairman of De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. He is the first President of SA-China People's Friendship Association.

Dipico matriculated from St Boniface High School in Kimberley in 1979, going on to study for a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Fort Hare. In 1996 he obtained a Leadership Diploma at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States of America.

While at Fort Hare Dipico was an executive member of the Azanian Students Organisation (Azaso), joining underground structures of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Eastern Cape in 1982. In the Northern Cape he was Regional Executive member of the United Democratic Front in 1985-6, and executive member of the Galeshewe Youth Organisation (Gayo) in 1982-4.

Dipico was detained in Ciskei in 1984 during the State of Emergency; and in Kimberley was detained in 1986 and again in 1987, charged with terrorism, subversion and promoting and furthering the aims of a banned organization. He was sentenced and imprisoned from 1987 to 1990.

Dipico was a member of the National Union of Mineworkers, serving as Regional Organiser in 1985-7 and as Education Co-ordinator in 1990.

He became Regional Secretary of the African National Congress in the Northern Cape in 1991, following the un-banning of the organization in South Africa, becoming its Provincial Chairman in 1992. He was on the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party in 1995-8.

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