Parks Tau

Mpho Parks Franklyn Tau (born 1970) is a South African politician from Gauteng. He has been the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition since July 2024. A member of the African National Congress (ANC), he was the second post-apartheid Mayor of Johannesburg between 2011 and 2016.

Born and raised in Soweto, Tau joined the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Council upon its inception in December 2000 and represented the ANC as a councillor until May 2019. He was elected as mayor in the May 2011 local elections but served only one term: though some observers admired Tau's technocratic policies, the ANC lost its electoral majority in the city in the August 2016 local elections. Tau remained in the council on the opposition benches for three years thereafter, serving as leader of the ANC caucus as well as leader of both the South African Local Government Association and United Cities and Local Governments.

After the May 2019 general election, Tau joined the national executive as Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. He served two non-consecutive stints in that office, from May 2019 to December 2020 and later from March 2023 to June 2024; in the interim, he served in the Gauteng Executive Council as provincial minister for economic development under Premier David Makhura. He was elevated to his current ministerial portfolio after the May 2024 general election.

In December 2022, Tau was elected to a five-year term as a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee. He formerly served in party leadership positions at both the local and provincial levels, notably as party chairman in Johannesburg between 2011 and 2018 and then as provincial treasurer in Gauteng between 2018 and 2022.