The secretary general of Ses’khona People’s Rights Movement has warned that they will later this month march for improved sanitation in impoverished communities.

Loyiso Nkohla said the mass action is planned to go ahead on October 28.

Nkohla along with Ses’khona leader Andile Lili, Thembela Mbanjwa and Songezo Mvandaba appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday for contravening the National Environment Management Waste Act after they dumped buckets of human faeces on the steps of the legislature’s Wale Street building two years ago.

Nine Ses’khona members, including Lili and Nkohla, were in August sentenced to three years imprisonment, suspended for five years, for contravening the Civil Aviation Act by dumping faeces at Cape Town International Airport two years ago.

The human waste was collected from communal toilets in areas such as Gugulethu and Khayelitsha as a labour dispute resulted in the ablution facilities not being emptied for three months.

Nkohla said in the past two years since the poo protests, conditions have not improved.

“The issue of sanitation remains a challenge in our communities,” he insisted.

The State has “absolutely no case against us”, Nkohla said, dismissing the charges as “a waste of time and resources”.

Judgment in the Wale Street case will be handed down on November 13.

“This is not a criminal case. We did not rape anyone,” he said.

“It was a result of a community protest. It cannot be criminalised.”

During the closing arguments heard on Friday, Duncan Korabie, for the defence, said he believed the charges were “trumped up” by provincial government as both Lili and Nkohla were known ANC figures.

Prosecutor Leon Snyman told the court the accused may argue that they acted in the interest of the community, but it could not justify taking the law into their own hands. News24