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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.
Later in his life, Tau studied public management at Regenesys Business School, and he holds a master's degree in public policy and management from the University of London.
The Mail & Guardian later reported that Tau's wife was a minority shareholder in a black economic empowerment (BEE) consortium that also included a company, Regiments Capital, that had received state contracts from the Gauteng treasury. The newspaper suggested that Tau, as political head of the treasury, had ignored an improper conflict of interest. Public integrity commissioner Jules Browde investigated the allegations after they were published in 2012, and he reportedly concluded in 2013 that Tau had lacked any influence over the relevant tender processes.
As mayor Tau was viewed as a Technocracy. In his 2013 State of the City address, he introduced his so-called Corridors of Freedom agenda, which involved redressing apartheid-era spatial inequalities through inclusionary public transport, including continued expansion of the Rea Vaya bus rapid transit system. The policy was popular among some observers, but others criticized its conceptualization or implementation. Tau's 2015 State of the City address set out plans for transforming Johannesburg into a smart city, including through public Wi-Fi networks and "smart" pre-paid electricity meters. Tau also committed to major infrastructure investments and launched the Jozi@Work employment scheme.
In the next local elections in August 2016, Tau stood for re-election as the ANC's mayoral candidate, although some segments of the regional party suggested fielding an alternative candidate. But the ANC's vote share declined precipitously in the election: it remained the largest party on the Johannesburg council but lost its majority, winning only 45 per cent of the vote. At the inaugural council meeting on 23 August, the DA's Herman Mashaba was elected as mayor, receiving 144 votes to Tau's 125; decisive for the DA's victory was the support of the Economic Freedom Fighters.
On 1 July 2018, Tau ceded the position of ANC regional chairperson in Johannesburg to Geoff Makhubo. The party said that Tau had not stood for re-election because he was planning to pursue elevation to the party's provincial leadership at the upcoming provincial ANC conference, to be held in Irene on 21 July. Although he was nominated to stand for election as the provincial party's deputy chairman, the conference elected him as provincial treasurer instead. The Mail & Guardian reported that he stepped out of the deputy leadership race after making a deal with supporters of Panyaza Lesufi, who won the deputy chairman position.
Tau's term as ANC provincial treasurer ended at the party's provincial conference in June 2022, where Morakane Mosupyoe was elected to succeed him. Tau was not included in the party Provincial Executive Committee as elected at the conference, which led to speculation that he would be removed from the Gauteng Executive Council. After Panyaza Lesufi replaced Makhura as premier in October 2022, he sacked Tau as MEC for Economic Development, appointing Tasneem Motara in his stead.
Tau retained his legislative seat and was subsequently made chairperson of the legislature's finance committee. In addition, in December 2022, he attended the ANC's 55th National Conference and was elected to a five-year term as a member of the party's National Executive Committee. The committee in turn elected him to chair its subcommittee on local government intervention.
In the next general election in May 2024, Tau stood for election to a full term in the National Assembly, but was initially ranked too low on the ANC's party list (74th) to win a seat. He was sworn in shortly after Parliament opened, on 19 June, when a casual vacancy arose. On 30 June, he was appointed as Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition in President Ramaphosa's ANC-led coalition government. Andrew Whitfield and Zuko Godlimpi, of the DA and ANC respectively, were named as his deputies.
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