Chairperson, Cope joins all the members in this House in mourning the passing of the hon Nkoana on 19 January 2015. After a lifetime serving different structures of his party, he had the privilege of representing the people of Mpumalanga in the national Parliament. Regrettably, his stay here was too brief for us to interact with him in a mutually co-operative manner to take South Africa forward.
In our country, unifiers in politics are most in demand. The inimitable and late Nelson Mandela imprinted on our minds the importance of the role of a political unifier. The ANC, we note, valued the hon Nkoana greatly for being a unifier. It is our loss that at a time when our Parliament and our country need all the unifiers we can muster, he will no longer be among us. May his example as a unifier live on.
As Cope we send our condolences to his father, his wife, Florah, his four children and all of those who were close and dear to him. We trust that the warm tributes that his comrades and his colleagues are paying to him will give you some comfort at this time of great grief. We enjoin all those in this honourable House to reflect on our mortality and to remind ourselves that life is for doing the best we can, so that when we depart, we would have left a little bit of ourselves in those whom we inspired and in those we have built. Farewell, hon Hlakudi! Hamba kahle! [Farewell!]