Mr Mogamad Ganief Ebrahim Hendricks was appointed as Deputy Minister of Social Development from 3 July 2024.
He is the leader of Al Jama-Ah political party that he founded in 2007, which is intended to uphold Muslim rights and interests in South Africa. Al Jama-ah is the only Muslim political party to have obtained a seat in Parliament. Mr Hendricks is a member of the National Assembly and has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) since May 2019. Prior to becoming an MP, he was a councillor in the City of Cape Town.
He was exposed to politics at a very young age by his activist mother, Gairooneesa Ally Hendricks. During the 1960s, his family was forced to change his father’s surname from Latiff to Hendricks to avoid being deported to then Natal. Mr Hendricks’s maternal and paternal grandparents from Johannesburg were anti-apartheid activists.
As a young boy he accompanied his mother Gairooneesa on visits to political prisoners and meetings. Often, he had to give up his bed to ‘visiting’ political activists on the run from the security police; and to the Gogos who travelled to Cape Town to visit their loved ones incarcerated on Robben Island.
Mr Hendricks attended the Chapel Street Primary School and Trafalgar High School in District Six, and later completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Industrial Psychology at the University of the Western Cape. He was the founder and editor of the university’s first newspaper, Unibel.
As an anti-apartheid activist, he has held numerous community positions, including as a founding member of the Muslim Students Association, Deputy Chairperson of the Forum for Black Journalists and General-Secretary of the trade union for workers with sensory disabilities.
In Parliament, he has served on the portfolio committees on Small Business Development; Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence; Labour and Employment; Health; Home Affairs; International Relations and Cooperation; Justice and Correctional Services, and Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
