BCM name change committee fraught with problems for a year
The Buffalo City Metro’s geographical name change committee has been engulfed with problems since it was resuscitated in December 2017.
This was revealed by BCM’s head of economic development and agencies, Noludwe Ncokazi, who called on councillors to support and assist in driving the troubled initiative.
Ncokazi made the call when she tabled a progress report in the last council meeting in October.
She said: “The committee has been engulfed with challenges. Some of the challenges include non-attendance of meetings by members of the committee.
“Two members have frequently not attended meetings, which in most cases results in a meeting not having a quorum.
“Secondly, one organisation has not yet forwarded its representative.”
In the last financial year the metro took its awareness and educational sessions about the proposed name changes to at least 15 BCM venues.
However, Ncokazi said: “Communities were raising service delivery issues. This clearly shows that there is a need to create more awareness so that people can see the need for participating in this process of changing the names.”
Following the awareness sessions, only two residents reportedly submitted inputs with 34 name change proposals.
“The geographical name change process is a government programme. As such it is requested that councillors assist in driving the programme ... There is an information gap in so far as understanding the programme. Councillors were requested to circulate the forms that people needed to fill if they have any proposals. No new names have been submitted to date. It is therefore proposed that a workshop of all councillors is held wherein a detailed programme will be presented,” Ncokazi said, adding that two additional members could be appointed to serve in the committee as a solution to the nonattendance problem.
BCM and Amathole geographical name change committees coordinator Mntwabantu Matshoba said the members who did not attend the meetings were representatives from the University of Fort Hare and traditional leaders in the BCM council.
“The department of education has not given us a name for their representative in the committee,” he said. “There is progress although there are challenges. This is political so there will be resistance from some communities.
“We have held the awareness campaigns, we still need to hold consultation sessions with all stakeholders to give an opportunity to discuss the proposed names and then after that we will go on public hearings where the final decisions will be taken about the names that will be sent to the provincial committee before the names are submitted to the national structure,” Matshoba said.
DA ward 28 councillor Marion Mackley said there was strong objection from the residents concerning a proposed name change for Beacon Bay to Nondyilo.
“I have a petition with me with about 2,500 signatures but no one wants to accept it in BCM or the department of arts and culture. They said they were in the initial stages and arts and culture did not want to accept the petition. The council speaker’s office also said it’s not for them and sent us to another office but even there the petition was not taken.”
DA ward 29 councillor Andre Swart said he also had a petition objecting to the proposed name change for Gonubie to Qunube.
“I have a petition where people are objecting to the change. About 350 people have signed. The so-called public meetings never took place,” said Swart.
BCM spokesperson Bathandwa Diamond had not responded to questions sent by the Dispatch by print deadline on Wednesday.
This is political so there will be resistance from some communities Mntwabantu Matshoba BCM and Amathole geographical name change committees coordinator