Background
Teunis was born on May 27, 1919, at Lydenburg, 160 miles east of Pretoria.
Teunis was born on May 27, 1919, at Lydenburg, 160 miles east of Pretoria.
Educated locally, then at the University of Pretoria where he graduated in 1946 with a Bachelor of Divinity added to his BA.
After six years in the ministry, he was appointed to a church at Witbank, 65 miles east of Pretoria in the heart of a mining area. He gained a reputation for straight talking on everyday issues and was elected to Witbank Town Council. In March 1966 he won the Witbank seat as a Nationalist parliamentary candidate. Promoted as an attentive backbencher in the July 1972 reshuffle, he came into the headlines on March 21, 1973, for a vigorous attack on “work- shy Bantus" in South-West Africa. He said these people would be put on a “black list” which would mean they could not get employment in white areas.
A politician who takes a tough stand against those he calls “workshy Bantus”. Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at a coal mining centre in the Transvaal for 20 years before taking up politics. Although he did not find it easy to succeed a Bantu expert like Dr Piet Koornhof, he has proved himself as a man of patience with difficult problems.