Battle over renaming G’town

Renaming Grahamstown to Makhanda has been a comedy of errors and a civil society organisation has warned that arts & culture minister Nathi Mthethwa may have to pay the cost of the resulting litigation out of his own pocket.

If Keep Grahamstown Grahamstown (KGG) has its way, the minister and his officials will have to foot the litigation bill arising from the serial blunders it says have been committed during the process, which has now drawn out over a decade.

The long list of defects, say KGG’s joint co-ordinators Jock McConnachie and Sigidla Ndu- mo, started with the public consultation process which had not followed legal requirements.

The government notice issued in June regarding the proposed name change had also been problematic.

It had failed, as required by law, to inform people of their right to object to the proposed name change, McConnachie and Ndumo said in a statement.

“It gave the impression that the effect of publication of the notice was that the name of Grahamstown was already changed to Makhanda.”

By law, the city would remain Grahamstown until all objections had been considered.

They said the minister had, to date, not responded to a single one of thousands of objections. The KGG had itself submitted a list of objections on behalf of over 10,000 people.

“The relevant legislation requires that the minister must consider each and every objection and provide reasons for accepting or rejecting them and he has so far only acknowledged receipt of 332 objections which means that thousands of objections are not accounted for,” the statement said.

They say the minister had compounded all these irregularities with his recent statement that he intended formally announcing on Heritage Day that the name of Grahamstown had been changed to Makhanda ka Nxele rather than just Makhanda.

“Makhanda ka Nxele is not the name as gazetted in the notice and has therefore never been formally proposed as required by law.”

The KGG has given notice that due to the many irregularities relating to the process, including the defective notice, it intended launching a court challenge. As part of this it would seek a cost order against those responsible for the irregularities – including the minister himself – in their personal capacities.

Mthethwa has indicated that he considered the process to have been entirely in line with legislation.

The relevant legislation requires that the minister must consider each and every objection