Durban – Ninety-year-old struggle stalwart and former African National Congress member of parliament Kay Moonsamy will be buried in Durban on Saturday.
KwaZulu-Natal premier Willies Mchunu, who will attend the service, said Moonsamy would receive a special provincial funeral to symbolise “the greatest honour we could bestow over a great leader of our people on his last days on earth”.
“By all accounts, cde Kay Moomsamy beat the odds by playing politics to dance to his own tune, and not the other way around. He indeed had a colourful and very chequered political career in that no one would ever predict what step he would take in any given political situation,” said Mchunu.
Moonsamy was a member of the Natal Indian Congress, South African Congress of Trade Unions, the ANC, South African Communist Party, and a defendant in the 1956 “treason trial”.
He lived in exile for 26 years and upon his return took up a seat in parliament in 1999, which he held for 10 years. President Jacob Zuma awarded Moonsamy the Order of Luthuli in 2015.
“Those of us who served with Moonsamy over decades in exile and again in the country are privileged to have walked with a servant-leader. May his soul rest in peace,” said Yogan Moodley, who served with Moonsamy in the SACP and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (Sactu).
The funeral takes place at Clare Estate Crematorium, hall two, at 11 am on Saturday.