Background
Timothy Kankasa was born on November 28, 1926, at Solwezi, North-western Province.
Timothy Kankasa was born on November 28, 1926, at Solwezi, North-western Province.
Educated at Mutanda River School and Chingola Central School then served with the British army in East Africa and Burma before completing his education at Munali Secondary School.
After working with township boards he became president of the National Union of Local Authority Workers. The following year he was appointed treasurer of the Trade Union Congress and in 1963 became TUC vice-president.
At independence in 1964 he became Zambia’s Ambassador to the Congo and the Central African Republic. He returned in 1968 and entered Parliament as MP for Kitwe West. In 1969 he became Minister of State in the President’s office in charge of party affairs. In 1970 he was Minister of State first for Land and Natural Resources then for Labour and Social Services.
Trade union leader who progressed from conscientious party worker to junior minister. Not a man of thrusting ambition, he is content to accept ideas and policies from others and try to explain them in simple terms on his travels which have taken him all over Africa, to Europe, the United States of America, Japan and China.