Makhosi Khoza’s future as an ActionSA KZN member is in jeopardy after a split with the party’s leadership. This comes amid allegations of cooperation between her and the ANC. Khoza is an eThekwini councillor for ActionSA’s Proportional Representative (PR) party. Khoza accepted candidacy for election as head of the council’s Municipal Public Accounts Committee (Mpac) in December, after the recent municipal elections.

Councillors from the African National Congress (ANC), the Abantu Batho Congress (ABC), and several independent councillors largely voted for her, defeating DA candidate Andre Beetge, whose party is in cooperation with ActionSA. Rumours started to swirl — both inside ActionSA and DA circles — that Khoza, who was the ActionSA provincial chairman at the time, had forged a deal with the ANC.

Soon after Khoza was elected chairman of the eThekwini Mpac, ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba announced the party’s decision to remove her as provincial chairperson. “To be quite honest, I was taken aback by that choice. I most certainly did not choose to resign as provincial chairman; I was urged to do so by ActionSA president Mashaba.”

Khoza Makhosi

While Mashaba said the decision was made to enable her to concentrate on the key Mpac role, party insiders claimed the move was a vote of no confidence in Khoza. “When the ANC voted for her in eThekwini, the governing party had recently said unequivocally that it would not collaborate with ActionSA in any of the country’s municipalities. Thus, the ANC’s abrupt decision to elect Makhosi as eThekwini’s Mpac head surprised the ActionSA leadership.

Suspects that she was in collaboration with the ANC surfaced,” a top ActionSA leader said.

According to a DA insider, Khoza informed close friends that she “would sooner die than vote for a DA candidate.” “She said that the Democratic Party was a racist organization and that she would never vote for its candidate,” the source stated. Khoza, a former deputy mayor of Msunduzi Municipality, left the ANC in 2017 after a spat with former President Jacob Zuma’s supporters over her stance against ANC corruption.

Khoza later joined Mashaba’s ActionSA after holding a variety of posts, including that of the president of ADec, a political party she created in 2020. As chairwoman of ActionSA KZN, Khoza was able to establish multiple branches around the province, which culminated in the new political party obtaining key critical council seats in municipalities such as eThekwini and KwaDukuza during the 2017 municipal elections.

While Mashaba gave the idea that the decision to dismiss Khoza as provincial chairman was made with her input, she told The Witness yesterday that the decision came as a “shock.” “To be quite honest, I was taken aback by that choice. I most certainly did not choose to resign as provincial chairman; I was urged to do so by ActionSA president Mashaba.

“However, as a disciplined ActionSA member, I accept the decision of the party leadership,” she stated. Khoza denied colluding with the ANC. “I was not shocked at all when ANC councillors voted for me. “My sense was that the ANC is in difficulty in practically all the [municipalities] it rules, and that they badly wanted to put in a strong Mpac chairman in eThekwini to avoid the same fate as the collapsed Msunduzi Municipality.”

Khoza Makhosi

“The ANC, like every other political party in the nation, is well aware of my credentials: I served as one of the most effective Scopa chairpersons in KwaZulu-Natal and as the SA Local Government Association’s chief executive” (Salga). “In any event, I am not the first opposition member to be chosen Scopa chairman by ANC officials.”

At the moment, Parliament’s Scopa chairman is an IFP member who was elected by the ANC. “Why is there a problem when Makhosi was elected by the ANC?” In any event, I deliberately left the ANC; why would I now want to work with it?” she said. Khoza vehemently disputed that she referred to the DA as a racist party. “It is a fabrication. These lies are perpetuated by those who oppose successful black women,” she said.

Lerato Ngobeni, the spokeswoman for ActionSA at the national level, disputed that Khoza was removed from her provincial chairman role due to her acceptance of the eThekwini Mpac job. “As ActionSA, we wholeheartedly endorse her and feel she is the greatest candidate for the role. Her decision to resign as ActionSA’s provincial chairwoman was intended to enable her to concentrate more fully on the Mpac role, which we believe is vital.”

Lerato Ngobeni, national spokesman for ActionSA Mashaba did not indicate in his statement that ActionSA also removed Khoza from the party’s senate (executive committee). Ngobeni said that Mashaba did not see the need to say this, since it was self-evident that Khoza ceased to be a senator when she stepped down as the party’s provincial chairwoman.