Tony Yengeni

Tony Sithembiso Yengeni (born 11 October 1954) is a South African politician and former anti-apartheid activist. He represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from May 1994 to March 2003, including as Chief Whip of the Majority Party from November 1998 to October 2001. He was a member of the ANC National Executive Committee between 1994 and 2022, though he resigned from legislative politics after he was convicted of fraud in 2003.

Yengeni grew up on the Cape Flats but joined the ANC in 1976 and went into exile with the party's armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. In 1986, he returned to South Africa as the commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe's structures in Cape Town. He was detained for his activism between 1987 and 1991, awaiting trial on terrorism charges, but he was indemnified and released in March 1991 during the negotiations to end apartheid. After that, he was the regional secretary of the ANC in the Western Cape until the 1994 general election, when he was elected to the National Assembly.

In the National Assembly, before his appointment as Chief Whip, Yengeni chaired the Joint Standing Committee on Defence in the first democratic Parliament from 1994 to 1998. His activities in the committee gave rise to a criminal charge during investigations into alleged corruption in the Arms Deal. In 2003, he was found guilty of fraud. He was sentenced to four years in prison, but only served four months,^[1] for getting an unlawful discount on a Mercedes Benz he purchased.^[2]