Farewell Cadre Sboniso Nkomonde

Date: Sunday, 20 June 2021

Media statement: immediate release

Farewell Cadre Sboniso Nkomonde

Today, on Sunday 20 June 2021, the Southern African Clothing & Textiles Workers’ Union (SACTWU) bids farewell to one of our finest young worker cadres, Cde Sboniso Nkomonde.

Together with his family and other formations of our mass democratic movement, we will lay him to rest in his home town of Ladysmith, in our KwaZulu-Natal Province.

The last 3 weeks have been amongst the most traumatic and extremely sad times which we had recently experienced.

Since the early evening of Monday 7 June 2021, we had been frantically searching for cde Sboniso, after he had not been in contact with SACTWU, his beloved trade union, for that whole day. This was very unusual for him. Until then, not a single day used to pass without him making contact with our local office.

Our fears grew even more frantic when he did not arrive for his COSATU Local meeting on Thursday, 10 June 2021. He never missed such meetings. At this meeting, as re-confirmation of the high esteem with which he was held in our movement, he was unanimously elected as Secretary of the Local, in absentia.

Our collective hearts broke into millions of shocked pieces, when we finally found him on Sunday 13 June 2021, deceased in the mortuary in Phoenix just outside Durban.

Our investigations revealed that he had horribly been knocked down by a vehicle in uMbilo in Durban, on late afternoon of Monday, 7 June 2021.

Sboniso was a brave, humble and well rounded young leader of our movement.

Over the years, he had served as an ordinary member of our SACTWU, as a shop steward, as Chairperson of our union’s Durban Central Branch, as a member of our KZN Provincial Executive Committee, as Deputy Provincial Chairperson of our KZN Province, as a member of our National Co-Ordinating Committee (NCC), as well as a member of our National Executive Committee (NEC). He had also previously served as a Council Member of the clothing industry bargaining council and as a member of the SACTWU Clothing Industry Wage Negotiations Team.

In addition, he had previously also served as a member of COSATU KZN’s Provincial Executive Committee (PEC), as our federation’s Durban Central Local Secretary and until the time of his untimely passing, as the COSATU Young Workers’ Forum’s National Deputy Convener/Secretary.

He was also an active member of the African National Congres (ANC), serving in its Ward 32, eThekwini Region.

He was passionate about international solidarity, including active support for the struggles of the Palestinian people.

He was an active member of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and had served as the Inaugural Branch Chairperson of its uMbilo Branch in KZN.

Despite his very busy organisational program and as a worker in a factory, cde Sboniso was passionate about constantly expanding his intellectual capacity. In this regard, he partook in many personal organisational development initiatives, such as young worker training in IndustriALL Global Union, DITSELA DANLEP programmes, various correspondence skills development training courses in trade unionism such as labour law, and private studies towards a degree by correspondence distance learning through the University of South Africa (UNISA).

A true organic intellectual, he was an energetic reader, mainly of political classic literature, as well as contemporary politics.

He was a passionate recruiter of unorganised workers into our trade union specifically, and into COSATU generally.

Sadly, our further investigations into his death through what initially appeared to have been an ordinary car accident has preliminary revealed some possible criminal conduct.

Following the opening of a case for further investigation into the circumstances surrounding the car accident, which had so terribly taken his life, we have recently been informed that at least 2 police officers have now been arrested in consequence.

We will allow, and appeal to all, for the law to take its course, but monitor the developments with an eagle eye.

One of the last political and organisational building acts which cde Sboniso was pursuing just before his sad passing, was to facilitate the setting up of a strategic engagement between the COSATU Young Workers Forum and the ANC Youth League National Task Team. We will work with others to bring this unfinished work to fruitation, in memory of cde Sboniso.

On this Father’s Day, the day of his funeral, it is sad that Cde Sboniso Nkomonde leaves behind a young 1-year old daughter.

We shall miss him, and always reserve a special place for him in our hearts.

We say “Hamba Kahle” to one of our finest revolutionaries.

Issued by
André Kriel
SACTWU
General Secretary

If further comment or information is required, kindly contact SACTWU’s KZN Provincial Secretary, Mr Mbaliyezwe Nxumalo, on cell number 0658458660.