Top DA man out after race fracas

● The DA and a top official who took a senior MP to the Equality Court over “racist, sexist and discriminatory” remarks have parted ways by “mutual agreement”.

This is according to sources in the DA who said this week that the party’s director of parliamentary operations, Louw Nel, had decided to step down after an amicable settlement agreement with his bosses.

The parting of the ways came in the same week that the Equality Court in Cape Town started hearing a case of discrimination filed by Nel against DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard over racist remarks allegedly made at a planning workshop last year.

The case was postponed to May 3 by chief magistrate Daniel Thulare.

Nel, who is understood to have signed a nondisclosure agreement with the DA, on Friday declined to explain why he was leaving a position he has held since 2017.

DA national spokesperson Solly Malatsi confirmed the “mutual separation” with Nel but declined to provide further details, saying the agreement was confidential. “This agreement is entirely unrelated to the matter before the Equality Court,” he said.

Nel took Kohler Barnard to the Equality Court last month, accusing her of making “discriminatory utterances” during a workshop with DA staff members in parliament.

According to Nel’s affidavit, Kohler Barnard allegedly told the workshop that:

● Farm murders have decreased since the removal of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, as Zimbabweans returned home;

● Women have themselves to blame and are stupid for being scammed as they enter into relationships with Nigerian men who sleep with them and solicit money under false pretences; and

● Black children are killing “whiteys” with stones thrown at vehicles from bridges, never mind that coloured and Indian people are also being killed.

In his affidavit, Nel argues that Kohler Barnard’s utterances were xenophobic, sexist and racist. He says the alleged utterances had caused great hurt and offence to him, and to his colleagues at the workshop.

He says the utterances suggesting that Zimbabweans are somehow predisposed to murder were especially hurtful and offensive to him as his children have a Zimbabwean mother and some of his colleagues were born in Zimbabwe.

Kohler Barnard declined to comment.