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Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Zuko Godlimpi (32) ‘doesn’t think much about this age thing’

Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Zuko Godlimpi (32) ‘doesn’t think much about this age thing’
Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Zuko Godlimpi. (Photo: Gallo Images / Fani Mahuntsi)
Queenin Masuabi
By Queenin Masuabi
21 Jul 2024
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The newly appointed Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Zuko Godlimpi, was recently announced as part of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Government of National Unity Cabinet. Daily Maverick asked the 32-year-old about his plans and whether deputy ministers had any influence.

Zuko Godlimpi has been filling in for Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri as the ANC’s spokesperson, so it was no wonder Daily Maverick found it difficult to pin down the newly appointed deputy minister of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) for a chat. 

Godlimpi was recently announced as a member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Government of National Unity (GNU) Cabinet, and it was only after the President’s Opening of Parliament Address in Cape Town over dinner that Godlimpi had the time to do the interview.

The 32-year-old is also a first-time MP, and besides being a deputy minister and acting ANC spokesperson, he is also the youngest ANC NEC member and the deputy chair of the party’s subcommittee on economic transformation.

He told Daily Maverick about his new role.

You are the youngest deputy minister. What was your first reaction when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced your name? 


My reaction was to accept the work that the President was asking me to do. To be honest, I do not think much about this age thing, but it was both exciting and almost intimidating because you have to do all of this work for the country. I am looking forward to it.

There is a lot of excitement around your appointment as Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, especially because of your age. (People on social media often also rave about his intellect.) What do you think you have to offer in this role? 


‘We just want to provide a lifeline to the scores of South African youth who even after graduating university are still locked outside of productive economic activity.’ (Photo: Gallo Images / Fani Mahuntsi)



The Department of Trade and Industry is quite a huge portfolio and is one of those that has always had two deputy ministers since the early days, so it is not a function of the Government of National Unity as many people would put it.

The mandate of industrial policy is very central to South Africa’s development as a whole. One of the things I am looking forward to is to get my allocation of tasks and what area of industrial policy I should focus on as we try to improve South Africa’s structural growth programmes, in a path that can boost our gross domestic product and employment and improve income distribution. 

We just want to provide a lifeline to the scores of South African youth who even after graduating university are still locked outside of productive economic activity. I am looking forward to that task because it has always been an element of economic policy that is close to my focus.

You wear many hats in your political party, and now you are part of the national government. How do you manage to balance all these responsibilities along with your private and social life? (On social media platform X the deputy minister is often teased by his peers for being unmarried.)


I do have a balance [laughs]. My not having a family in the sense that I am unmarried is an added advantage in the context of the workload that I have been given by the ANC, but I take it with a sense of gratitude because it is a learning exercise.

When the time comes, I will do all that, but now I am focused on being the acting spokesperson of the ANC and the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry. 

deputy minister godlimpi

The role of deputy ministers is often diminished by pundits and labelled as largely ceremonial; what is your take on the matter? Especially seeing that there are two deputies in your department.


I think it is people who do not understand the state functions. As I was saying, for example, in the Treasury, the Deputy Minister of Finance has the task of leading the Public Investment Corporation, which is the biggest pension fund in Africa. How is that useless work? 

People do not follow what deputy ministers do. The Deputy Minister of Home Affairs actually led the launch of the Border Management Agency. It is just that people choose to focus on certain portfolios which are glorified, so they think Treasury and DTIC. There is a lot of work which is being done in the international relations and cooperation portfolio by the deputy minister; again it is a big portfolio.

I know the obsession is around people saying “deputy ministers are useless because they can’t act on behalf of ministers”. They do not in the context of Cabinet, but on providing leadership in the department, they do actually step in on behalf of ministers.

Name the key issues which should be championed by the department in the next five years?


Operationalising master plans as part of the real urgency to improve SA’s manufacturing sector. You need to create employment, so you need an industrial strategy – which sectors of the economy can give these jobs?

You need to mobilise industrial finance. That includes taking what you get from the National Treasury but also being creative in looking at other sources of finance that can be brought into the scope. You need to improve the efficacy of your incentive schemes as well, so that they can better improve the overall policy of our industrial policy. 

The issue on whether you take a protectionist stance or not in the economy is not as straightforward. Yes, you want government policy to protect your industries and the baseline of your export growth, but here is the dynamic – because you want your products to be accessed by foreign markets. When you bring in protectionist policy in certain sectors, you run the risk of reciprocation from other countries.

So, it makes no sense to have a blanket approach. What you want to do is to find a creative way to balance between imposing some degree of tariffs but you bring in incentives to lower the cost of foreign products. 

The issue regarding SA’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) renewal came to the fore quite strongly last year due to geopolitics and the country’s stance on a number of global issues. What do you think SA needs to do to strike a balance between maintaining trade relations and ensuring that it can articulate its foreign policy effectively?


deputy minister godlimpi Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Zuko Godlimpi. (Photo: Gallo Images / Fani Mahuntsi)



International trade is a function of geopolitics, not just commerce on its own. It has always been like that. In 2014 there was a threat of SA being kicked out, and the basis at the time was whether SA qualifies as an underdeveloped country in the criteria that the US was looking for. 

So, South Africa defends its position in two ways. We insist that we are a developing country whose industrial sectors still need preferential access because once we are subjected to trade barriers, we can collapse.

SA’s geolocation in Africa is such that African countries rely on SA’s infrastructure including its ports because it’s got the gateway status, so removing it from Agoa suddenly prejudices the African countries and undermines Agoa. 

What Agoa says is that it is against countries that promote terrorism that poses a threat to the US national security. Even the annual review categorically makes the admission that SA cannot be classified as [a] country that is supporting terrorism and therefore does not pose any threat.

Where the issue comes in is that, do countries within Agoa even have the right to disagree with the US on foreign policy? SA says we do retain it, it has no bearing.

It just has to do with us insisting on a historically shared perspective of advancing human rights, so when we think the conduct of a particular country is in violation of our human rights outlook, we have to voice it out. We do think that our relationship with the US is centred around philosophically sound grounds, and then disagreement about the Israel and Ukraine outbreaks of conflict is not the sum total of our relationship.

The African Continental Free Trade Area seems to finally be taking off, but it’s been a long and arduous journey. SA sent its first shipment of products to other countries trading under the agreement in January. Can you explain to ordinary South Africans why this trade agreement is important for SA and the continent at large?


It might be cheaper to buy a car from Europe than buying from another African country in the current format. How trade structures are built now, they are designed to accommodate imports to Europe and export to Europe, but not internally in Africa. So, the free trade agreement is to ensure that Africans must start among themselves and make sure [about] jobs and relying less on the rest of the world for their economic survival.

What makes the implementation of it slow is that you want African countries to now restructure their trade and finance systems to pay attention to each other internally. DM

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