Joburg's Speaker is a woman to be reckoned with. She has a strong background in civic activism and is "firm, but fair". 

The speaker of the city council, Nkele Ntingane

NKELE Ntingane, the City's Speaker, spent the first six years of her career working as a radiographer; she then had a spell at the Nuclear Physics Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, where a colleague labelled her "a dark horse". She says now, "I like it that way." 

She originally studied radiography because it involves things you "don't see but [it] makes you see other things".

Perhaps these two descriptions epitomise what a very private person Ntingane is, but, at the same time, what a curious, affirmative, focused and driven person she is. And she has a humility that women in top positions often don't have.

Ntingane was the City's municipal enterprises councillor for the past five years and was appointed the Speaker in March this year. She describes herself as "being my own friend" and having "my family as my friends". She has a very active history in civic and community organisations – she was a founder member of the Federation of Transvaal Women, an active member of the anti-apartheid group the United Democratic Front in the 1980s and a dedicated member of various community bodies in Alexandra, where she was born.

Her one-year spell in prison in the mid-1980s she sees as a privilege. "I psyched myself up for it. I decided that nobody would touch the real me; I made that amply clear."

She even felt sorry for the wardresses, whom she felt were probably "brainwashed", doing a job they possibly didn't want to do. She demanded what she was entitled to and focused on little things to keep herself going. Judge Richard Goldstone's visit and intervention also improved her stay in prison, she says.

On her release from prison Ntingane endured several banning orders.

Now, after eight months in the Speaker's chair, Ntingane feels that she has established herself as being firm but fair. "When necessary I can be very firm." She gives every councillor equal time to speak, but if she feels it necessary, will give a person more time if the issue is particularly meaningful to them. 

As Speaker Ntingane can step into Executive Mayor Amos Masondo's shoes to represent him at functions or attend meetings on his behalf; but these days the Speaker has a much larger role than simply adjudicating council meetings. For example, she is establishing a new form of local government. Together with the Sedibeng District Municipality, which incorporates Vereeniging and Heidelberg to the south of the city, Johannesburg is the pilot project for a new form of local government in which there is a separation of the legislative powers and the powers of the mayor and his 10-person committee.

In the previous system the executive was both the referee and the player and was not accountable to anyone. In the new system means there are 10 new departments with 10 chairpersons who are empowered to ask the politicians - the members of the mayoral committee - to explain any aspect of planning and execution of plans, and so forth, and why they haven't been fulfilled.

The idea, says Ntingane, is to improve on local delivery. "We have grown and evolved – local government is maturing," she says.

Ntingane's big task now is to educate people about the new system. "I am confident things are happening in the right direction." Once things are working smoothly in Johannesburg and Sedibeng, the system will be replicated around the country.

It is important for the Speaker to instil "confidence and dignity" among the people in her office, she says, especially as other councils are approaching Joburg to learn from its officials. 

There is now an equal balance of men and women on the mayoral committee – five of each (as opposed to four women and six men previously). Ntingane says the women hold key portfolios, namely community development, health, infrastructure, transport and corporate and shared services. "Women are strong generally, irrespective of status."

She says that even rural women with no formal education take on a quantity and quality of work that men would be daunted by, and often abandon before considering. "Women are at the bottom rung of everything."

For this reason she would like to see more women than men in future mayoral committees. Ntingane decries the description of women as the weaker sex. "Men are trying to defend the fact that they're not such a strong sex," she says, with a broad smile.

Ntingane says she grew in her previous portfolio of municipal enterprises, where she oversaw the City's utilities and agencies, from enterprises like the zoo, the property company and the fresh produce market, through to the Civic Theatre. "It was a privilege to chair this portfolio. I have never before had a situation where I represented a shareholder. I have brought that knowledge into this role. To this end, I'm eternally grateful to the mayor to have given me the opportunity to serve."

She has a spacious office on the fourth floor of the mayoral chambers, with windows on three sides. The furniture is in shades of orange, brown and black leather – not her choice, she says, shaking her head disapprovingly, but it's what she inherited. Her desk is neat, with very few papers in evidence.

She gives the impression that her surroundings are of little consequence, though – there are other far more important things in her life, like the people she has met and worked with; like the places she has visited; like the challenges she has faced.

"I am just an ordinary woman who has been privileged to have been given opportunities. Life has been good to me, in more ways than one – the people I have met – although not without challenges – have been important for me."