Early Life
Balfour was born in the Eastern Cape and completed his schooling at Jabavu High School in the town of Alice. He went on to study at Lovedale College and Fort Hare University. After spending time as a political detainee, Balfour went into exile in Australia from 1989 to 1992. While in Australia, he attended Victoria University, Australia.
Balfour has been a South African Member of Parliament since 1996 and was appointed as Minister of Correctional Services on 29 April 2004.
Following the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki in September 2008, Balfour was one of ten ministers who submitted their resignations on 23 September, although it was subsequently announced that he might be willing to remain in his post. He was retained in his post in the Cabinet announced on 25 September.
He was appointed as South Africa's high commissioner to Botswana but resigned the position less than a year after the diplomatic posting.
In 2011 it was announced that he was taking over as the chairperson of Boxing South Africa
Read more about this topic: Ngconde Balfour
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“We’ve only just begun to learn about the water and its secrets, just as we’ve only touched on outer space. We don’t entirely rule out the possibility that there might be some form of life on another planet. Then why not some entirely different form of life in a world we already know is inhabited by millions of living creatures?”
—Harry Essex (b. 1910)