He says he decided to quit politics outright to “choose peace”.
Former EFF MP Pro Khoza this week revealed he is done with politics and will now rather prefer what benefits him and his immediate ones as he finds new greener pastures in farming.
Khoza said it doesn’t matter what people say. He said he had to quit positions of political power to focus somewhere else.
He said knowledge in farming is key now as well as its technological advancements which “many of our people are not aware of”.
Khoza took the 013NEWS reporter to the communal farming project in the Badplaas area, where soya beans, wheat and mealies are produced.
He has partnered in the hundreds of hectares farming project in the area together with other community groups and land claimants. The project brings white farmers who rent the idle land from the group of the families who claimed it and then the white farmers in return bring other local groupings to come partner and be trained in how to turn the land green while making money from its fertility.
The experienced white farmers will then leave the local groupings to continue making the land green.
The project is supported by the Land Bank.
He said farming was very difficult and required “passion and love for all the stages and processes”.
Khoza said in farming you don’t just think about the money you make but also the entire food security chain of South Africa.
“The process involves time, chemicals and machines and it’s a very delicate process,” Khoza told 013NEWS.
“Myself I’m still new here and I love it. I’ve watched a first process of pre-planting and post-planting. Now we are heading to pre-harvest and post-harvest and I honestly think if our people can be brought closer to this type of business we can work towards ending poverty,” he said.
ALSO SEE: Farming is long process, needs passion – Vusi Shongwe
Khoza, a popular local leader who is also involved with the mobilisation of locals to get a stake at billionaire Patrice Motsepe’s Nkomati Nickel Mine between Machadodorp and Badplaas, says “if I stick with those with knowledge in farming I’m with the future of South Africa”.
He said he had decided to leave politics completely to cater for those who are closest to him – his wife, mom, brothers and kids, make a success from a business currently hard to tap and become a farmer once and for all.
In January 2018, Skoro was co-opted to come serve as additional member of SANCO Mpumalanga as was Belfast-based leader Hamzer Ngwenya who also got co-opted to the provincial highest decision-making body.
Khoza said politics has been a pain to his life, with people insulting his children, friends and relatives “over issues that can be solved but the community itself coming back to my personal life and affecting those closer to me,” Khoza told this paper.
He said his dream had always been to be a lawyer and assist people get injustice in the courts. Raised from a struggling community of rural dwellers, the 43-year-old Khoza struggled through the journey of life mostly as a waiter in restaurants before Badplaas residents called for him to serve the area as a ward councillor in 2006.
He was an ANC member then and afterwards Khoza grasped an opportunity provided by EFF leader Julius Malema in 2013 when he left the ANC to form his Economic Freedom Fighters, and where Khoza became one of the key EFF leaders in the province.
“I think that the issue of young people or future South Africans accessing these farming opportunities is one of the issues we must solve as it is far away from them and the knowledge they need to do agricultural activities is very limited. I think everybody can do farming is just that we all need to make it our everyday life and be accustomed with it.”
He said moving forward a school dedicated to this type of learning will have to be established locally and he was more than willing to fight for such a school to be established to assist with farming knowledge and skills.
(edited by ZK)
Send tip-offs to editor@013.co.za
