LUMKA OLIPHANT: STILL UNSTOPPABLE

By Cuma Pantshwa.

• The Department of Social Development, with all its highs and lows, has moulded Lumka Oliphant into the woman she is today.
• Prophetically given the birth name Lumka, it has stood her in good stead, telling people how to approach her and how she weighs up others.
• ⁠Yet, Oliphant has found herself in the company of social workers who have their own soft language that” reminds you that at the heart of it all, we are here to listen, to care, and to restore dignity”.

There is something about Lumka Oliphant.

Something in her voice, in her unapologetic presence, that instantly brings Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise to mind.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise

Does my sassiness upset you?

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?

For Ms O, as she’s affectionately known in the department, life has been a dance between triumphs and trials, highs, and lows. Yet, like Angelou’s words, she moves forward with a confidence that is unshaken, unbroken, and unbothered.

And in this Women’s Month, the Department of Social Development celebrates her and all its women, because she is living proof that the spirit of the 1956 Women’s March has multiplied and lives on in countless leaders across the country.

Busting myths

The department’s chief director of communications opens our conversation with one of her greatest passions — pole dancing! You get the sense it is what fuels her confidence and makes her feel unapologetically all woman.

It is more than just a sport for her; it is about balance, rhythm, and strength in motion — the very qualities that have carried her through an eventful year.

“I wanted to kill the myth that pole dancing is just for strippers, and for the enjoyment of men,” Ms O says, with her trademark directness. “It is an aerial sport.”

Her reasons go deeper than fitness. She wanted fuller-figured women to see themselves in the sport, to break body-shaming stereotypes, and to push back against the “I’m not strong enough” or “I need to lose weight first” excuses.

She admits that many people ask her questions like, “How does your partner cope?” or “What do your sons think?”

Cheekily, she answers, “I do it for me.”

With a laugh, she continues, “I’m not committing a crime, plus I’m not borrowing anyone’s body, so I don’t need anyone’s permission.”

Pole, she insists, is a full-body workout, building strength, confidence, and resilience. “It’s about embracing yourself, especially as you get older. It’s about self-love in your own body.”

As we move into talking about her work, she laughs and says her colleagues, even the ones too shy to comment on her pole fitness, probably think, “Only Lumka! It couldn’t be anybody else.” She smiles knowingly. “I don’t think they expect any less.”

Grace, grit, and the courage to stand tall

The past year brought another challenge: stepping into the role of acting deputy director-general for Corporate Support Services – a position she held for a full year until the end of July.

“It was a huge confidence booster,” Oliphant recalls. “To be chosen by the director-general (DG) and the minister meant they believed in my capabilities.”

When she started, there was no executive leadership in the department. One of her first tasks was to fill critical posts and stabilise the department – a priority for the Minister of Social Development, Sisisi Tolashe.

“I’m proud to say that during my acting period, the DG was appointed, the CFO, the CEO of SASSA (the South African Social Security Agency), and the deputy director-general of Welfare Services. It wasn’t just me – I had a strong HR team that understood the mandate and got things done.”

Then she leans in: “But look at the narrative when these achievements are mentioned, they forget to say it was a woman at the helm.

“If it were a man, the story would be firmly tied to his leadership. That’s what we do to women: we erase their efforts, their stories, their achievements. But you can never erase me from the hearts of the people.”

She also lists the completion of the organisational structure, ready for the minister’s approval, as one of her biggest achievements.

Still, she admits the role was intense, “like being the first-born in a big family”, with constant calls about lights, water, lifts, and even navigating the “big scary” world of organised labour where, for the first time, she was referred to as the employer. “That’s when I knew things were serious.”

Battle hardened

However, Ms O also speaks of the lows …

The year wasn’t only marked by milestones; it was also defined by battles. She recalls some painful moments and labour-related disputes.

Oliphant had already been toe-to-toe with SASSA, taking the matter all the way to the Supreme Court of Appeals and winning. But it came at a cost.

“I thought the SASSA case was the worst,” she admits

“I slipped into depression and was hospitalised for 21 days. I remember a colleague, Neliswa Ndabankulu, telling Mashudu Mzimba in my office that she must never allow me to come to the office because I had truly lost my mind.”

She pauses. “I didn’t even feel the first 21 days of the Covid lockdown because I spent them in a psychiatric hospital.

“SASSA was coming for my estate. They were coming for the only thing I had for my children. I had to get up and cut the pity party.”

But, she says, she remains committed to the sector. “This is my family,” she says firmly. “I will leave when I want to and on my terms. I am not an orphan here. I belong here.”

Fast forward to the past year, while acting as deputy director-general, Oliphant experienced betrayal.

She was taken to Labour Relations by a colleague – something that had never happened before. “I had to keep working with that colleague,” she says, “so I had to be the bigger person.”

The commissioner’s ruling cleared her name and recommended that the department publicly affirm her absolution. “I’m still waiting for that platform,” she adds calmly.

Then came a petition against her – one she first heard about in the corridors from colleagues in other units.

“That one almost threw me off. I didn’t expect it from where it was coming from. I was told they wanted to embarrass me and strip me of my dignity. Still, I held my head up high and successfully defended my name and my hard work.”

Again, the commissioner found no case against her, and she was cleared.

Scholar in motion

She proudly admits that the department has moulded her into the woman she is today.

The Department of Social Development believed in her potential and invested in her journey – first funding her honours degree and recently supporting her through to the completion of her master’s.

This past year also brought a new skill – learning the process of reporting to Parliament.

As acting director-general, she frequently appeared before the Portfolio Committee, presenting the Department of Social Development’s progress on key priorities such as the Employment of Social Service Professionals strategy, among many others.

Balancing that responsibility with postgraduate studies was no small feat. But Oliphant pushed through.

Her master’s research took place in Matatiele, a unique town on the border of Lesotho and South Africa, straddling the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

Its location creates unique social grant challenges, including children with one South African and one Lesotho parent, parents choosing to raise children in South Africa for its comprehensive social protection, and even differences in inoculation schedules marking identity.

Her thesis was not just policy research; it was a journalism piece on how the media frames SASSA.

“Because of a lack of resources and the juniorisation of newsrooms, SASSA is always framed as corrupt or in crisis,” she says.

“Borrowing from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Danger of a Single Story , it became important to frame a more complex and nuanced story, because there is a lot more about SASSA than what we read.”

It was controversial enough that her examiners were firmly on opposite ends. A trait she says has defined her character. “People are always on two opposite ends with me. They either love me strongly or dislike me strongly, often for no reason.”

Life goes on

She always moves forward, and she counts learning the IT space as one of her many highlights.

Attending a conference in Dubai opened her eyes to the future of service delivery. “The future of service delivery is IT,” she says. “IT is more than updating our passwords and fixing laptops, it’s about transforming the way we serve people.”

So, despite the challenges at the Department of Social Development, there is always joy.

“I don’t hold grudges. Kumnandi eDSD,” she laughs.

“There’s not one single day when I have felt like I do not want to come to work. We’re never bored. We’re dealing with difficult things, yes, but it’s a good place to work. There is nothing I haven’t gone through here.”

Her love for working with social workers grounds her, she says. The way they work, their innate empathy, and the quiet strength of the profession have a way of softening even the hardest of days.

“They have their own soft language,” she smiles, “and it reminds you that at the heart of it all, as the Department of Social Development, we are here to listen, to care, and to restore dignity.”

Her name, her command

Oliphant believes she was given her name for a reason. Her late aunt taught her the meaning of her name early on. “‘Lumka’ is always said in the third person — it’s a command to beware. When I introduce myself, I’m telling you to be aware: of how you talk to me, approach me, and that I too must always be alert.”

Unapologetically on the side of women

Her colleague, Dr Maureen Mogotsi, the chief director: Social Assistance at the Department of Social Development, once told her that she had written her PhD while pregnant.

“That made me realise there is absolutely nothing women cannot do,” Oliphant says. “I want to remind women that we have been doing it.”

And so, her message to women this Women’s Month is as clear as it is unflinching: “We only have ourselves. No one is going to do it for you. No one is going to rescue you. Men are always on each other’s side. They make way for one another.

“But women – we’re victims of patriarchy, sometimes through our own agency. We fight for men’s approval, we want to be accepted by them, even competing for their attention as bosses.

“I’ve learned to be on the side of women, even knowing they may reject me at any moment – because it’s the right thing to do.”

After a year of petitions and pole routines, of leadership victories and court wins, Oliphant says she’s planning her exit.

“The Department of Social Development has served me well. It took me to all the places I dreamt of as a little girl — the United Nations, the African Union, diplomatic realm.

“I’ve done everything through the Department of Social Development. Gauteng has served me, too. I arrived in Johannesburg at 21 as an intern at The Star. I’m ready for my next challenge. I don’t know what it is yet, but I trust it will reveal itself when the time is right.”

As our conversation closes, the analogy of a diamond lingers. Coal must endure intense pressure before it transforms into something rare and unbreakable.

Oliphant has faced pressure, challenges, and trials – and, as Angelou wrote, she keeps rising … stronger, unstoppable, and unshakeable.

Because for her, life really is a dance – sometimes choreographed, sometimes improvised. But always, she finds her rhythm. And no matter the beat, she dances on.