3 women at helm of Lim’s city of stars

POLOKWANE – Thembi Nkadimeng is the third female mayor to lead Polokwane since the inception of the city.

Review looked at the women who helped shape the city.

The first woman to wear the mayor’s chain in the city was Lien Grimm. She became mayor in 1959.

In 1960, she received British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, when he visited the then Pietersburg after his famous “Winds of Change” speech in the South African parliament. With her was Polokwane legend, Tom Naudé, finance minister at the time.

A former Polokwane councillor who served with Grimm, Attie Vermaak, told Review that she was a beautiful woman who always did her work to the best of her abilities.

“She was a very pleasant woman and she was dynamic in her position as mayor.

“She was well spoken and she knew what she wanted.”

The first democratic municipal elections in 1995 saw Eileen Schofield elected as the second female mayor in the city’s history.

“I received two surprises that day. Firstly, being elected was quite a shock and then, shortly afterwards, I was announced as mayor; an English-speaking woman in an Afrikaans, male dominated industry,” she said.

“It seems this was a shock to many other people as well, because a debate ensued as to what I would be called. It was only after one man called me ‘your majesty’ that it was decided that I would be addressed as madam mayor,” she explained

Recently Polokwane saw the inauguration of its third female mayor, Thembi Nkadimeng; the first black woman ever to lead the city’s council.

Nkadimeng told Review that she came from a family of philanthropists and that she only had the best at heart for the city’s people.

“I want to show the world that women are capable. It is important to me that this fact should never be doubted,” she told Review.