EXCLUSIVE: Loyiso Nkohla joins Patriotic Alliance

By: Sello Theletsane

Community activist and Ses’khona Movement co-founder Loyiso Nkohla has joined the Patriotic Alliance ahead of the local government as the party prepares to dislodge the DA.

Nkohla was unveiled on Monday by PA deputy president Kenny Kunene who welcomed him and 20 other ward councillors to the party.

He said the decision to join the party followed months of discussions regarding what was being put on the table and what benefits the community would get from that.

“Our people have been asking for a long time what is the next step. They have been saying, Loyiso, you have been used by the ANC, the DA and many people have used you to organise people. What are you bringing for the upcoming elections because we can’t go and vote for these other parties,” he said.

“I said to them I had been talking to the Patriotic Alliance and what they have put on the table is for my people, the people in the squatter camps, informal settlements, Black African brothers and sisters, our coloured nation who have been subjected to poverty, unemployment and crime. That is what the DA has been riding on.”

Nkohla added that for as long as we blacks and coloureds are divided, the DA would always find a way to win Western Cape.

“Should we continue to divide each other to say coloureds are much better than Africans or we as Africans we are in the majority is absolute nonsense. We are all black people subjected to poverty. For as long as we are not united, we will continue to see how bad the Mitchells Plain is today, how bad the community of Bishop Lavies is. The majority of votes for the DA in Cape Town are from the coloured community, including the recent support we have given to the Democratic Alliance in the 2016 elections, where they committed certain things to do which they have never done,” he said.

Nkohla added that fighting for the community put him at odds with the DA and the two subsequently had to go their separate ways. He said he was suspended for asking when the promises made in 2016 would be fulfiled.

“There were a lot of service delivery projects that I have to fight with them, which has gotten me suspended. I will never be chained by the salary they were giving me. I will never be chained by money, we stood firm for our people,” he said.

In welcoming Nkohla, Kunene said they were excited about what the future had in store for the party and also for the marginalised communities of Westen Cape.

“He is a community activist, very passionate about community issues, the challenges faced by ordinary people. We saw him in the past years when he, out of frustration with the City of Cape Town for not keeping promises to the people, threw faeces at the Cape Town International Airport to express frustration. We said to him that now he gets an opportunity to be in council and do what he expected councillors to do for his people. He will have the support of other PA councillors because the PA is going to take over,” Kunene said.