Still struggling to come to grips with Gqeberha

Can anyone tell me why Port Elizabeth/Gqeberha is treated differently to any other city in SA?

All the other cities had the name for their administration (municipality/metro) changed, but the city name remained unchanged, or example Tshwane vs Pretoria.

The same applies to Durban, Johannesburg and Bloemfontein.

Why is our municipality called the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, and the city now called Gqeberha?

The name Gqeberha is still extremely unpopular among many, and seems mainly used in the media and on TV.

I have never heard a single citizen using this name, except perhaps in jest.

The black population have their own name for our city (Ebhayi) and this will most likely never change.

How likely are they to use the name Gqeberha?

When the name was first proposed, there was an outcry from the public.

To add their voices to the rejection of the name, residents collectively signed a petition which contained about 25,000 names.

This was presented to the so-called name change committee.

However, they, with the assistance of the minister concerned, decided that because the petition was submitted on one set of documents, it had to be regarded as one single rejection of the name change.

How ridiculous can one be?

Fortunately this minister was fired recently and will not be able to do further harm.

Initially the local fraternity widely condemned the name change and vowed to take the matter to court, if necessary, to have the name set aside.

Many of us trusted these comments and wonder why this action failed to materialise.

Incidentally, the street and road directional names throughout the entire area from Port Alfred to George have remained “Port Elizabeth”.

Does the local municipality know something that we don’t?