Byo fails to effect name changes

DESPITE passing a landmark resolution for the city to correct misspelt suburb names in March, the Bulawayo City Council has failed to effect the resolution after they erected a number of directional signs bearing the “misspelt” names last month.

Although council officials tried to cover their tracks in this latest boob, taking two weeks to respond to written questions enquiring on the matter, the local authority’s senior public relations officer Mrs Nesisa Mpofu acknowledged the blunder but claimed that the new signs were approved before the resolution was passed.

Mrs Mpofu claimed the tender to put up the directional signs was awarded in December 2015 while the resolution to change the names was passed in March this year.

She said the company only managed to put up the signs in April this year but failed to explain how the local authority failed to give the directive to change the names.

“The City of Bulawayo put out the tender for erection of directional signs in July 2015 and this was contracted out by 13 October 2015. Council then advised the contracting company of the names to be placed on the directional signs in December 2015 working in close consultation with Council.

“The city received the letter requesting for correction of misspelt names on 11 November 2015. The letter was circulated for departmental comments and submitted to the Street Naming Sub Committee before submission to the Town Lands and Planning Committee meeting of 16 February 2016. The resolution to correct misspelt names was passed on 2 March 2016. The manufacture of the names for the signs were done and completed before February 2016 and before the council resolution,” said Mrs Mpofu.

The senior public relations officer was however, not clear on what the local authority would do to address this blunder.

Contacted for comment, Mr Khumbulani Maphosa, who wrote the initial letter imploring the local authority to effect the name changes, said it was unfortunate that council was failing to adhere to its own resolution.

“It is rather surprising and disappointing on the part of council that they can pass a resolution and clearly fail to effect it themselves. They said they are looking for funds to implement these name changes but surprisingly they now give a company a tender to do so and that company does the wrong thing totally.

“I am actually in the process of writing a letter to the Mayor for him to explain what these double standards are all about,” said Mr Maphosa.

A full council meeting adopted the resolution after Mr Maphosa wrote a letter saying the wrong spellings were “linguistically and culturally wrong”.

White settlers who ran the council before Independence in 1980 were responsible for the naming of suburbs and signage which typically carried misspelt words in the local language. No effort was made to correct the misspellings after Independence.

Mr Maphosa wrote to the BCC: “I write to you requesting that the Bulawayo City Council expeditiously consider correcting the misspelt Ndebele names of some suburbs/locations and or streets of the city that were mostly misspelt by the pre-independence local authority.”

He identified some of the suburbs whose names were misspelt as Mpopoma, Nketa, Makokoba, Pelandaba, Pumula, Lobengula, Kumalo, Masiyepambili and Matsheumhlope.

Maphosa said they should be changed to Mpophoma, Makhokhoba, Phelandaba, Phumula, Lobhengula, Khumalo, Masiyephambili and Matsh’amhlophe.

He said the misspelt names symbolised colonial disrespect of the Ndebele language and culture, and the BCC had to make a policy decision to have the names corrected. Maphosa said colonial errors should be revisited and corrected to restore honour to Ndebele people.

“These wrong spellings are linguistically, culturally, morally, legally, socially and ethically wrong,” he wrote. “These misspelt names are a violation of the Ndebele human, linguistic and cultural rights as enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act 2013, in international law as well as in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.”

Councillors concurred with Mr Maphosa and passed a resolution to okay the name changes.