"Let them drink champagne": DA takes action against PA’s vulgar JRA party while Joburg roads explode

27 August 2023

The Democratic Alliance (DA) condemns in the strongest terms the vulgar display of excess by the Patriotic Alliance (PA) at a party hosted by the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA). In a video circulated widely on social media, the PA’s “Sushi King,” Kenny Kunene, can be seen leading a toast with barrels of expensive French champagne while making misogynistic comments towards women.

A single bottle or this luxurious champagne retails for over R1 600.

While roads are literally exploding in the Joburg CBD, the PA has turned the JRA into a feeding trough for excess and political vulgarity.

It is important to note that, until recently, a deployed PA cadre, Charles Cilliers, was the chairman of the JRA board.

The DA has already lodged a complaint with the Public Protector over the PA’s cadre deployment of Charles Cilliers. He is currently employed in the city administration while being a member of the PA’s extended NEC and holding the position of Head of Strategy and Negotiation in the party, despite the fact that the recently-amended Municipal Systems Act prohibits anyone who holds political office from being employed in a municipality.

The DA will further urgently submit a request in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act to determine how much taxpayer money was wasted on the PA’s champagne party.

What we see in this video, is the essence of the PA. A party that is nothing but an extension of ANC misrule and vulgarity presiding over the collapse of Johannesburg.

This disgusting behaviour vindicates the DA’s principled commitment to not partnering with the PA under any circumstances. The DA offers an alternative to the ANC. The PA is an alternative version of the ANC.

The people of Johannesburg deserve better than this. That is why the DA will introduce a motion to dissolve the Joburg city council as soon as it becomes legally possible on 2 November. We demand that fresh elections are held in Johannesburg within 90 days, so that the residents of our country’s biggest city can vote out small parties like the PA that have sold out to the ANC while causing profound instability and suffering.

Issued by Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku, DA Johannesburg Caucus Leader, 27 August 2023