Name change objections not delivered
Arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa has dismissed hundreds of objections to changing the name of Grahamstown to Makhanda, including those submitted by local organisation Keep Grahamstown Grahamstown (KGG).
The only problem with this, says the KGG, is that the South African Post Office last week returned unopened and “unclaimed” its parcel containing more than 1,000 pages of objections from some 10,000 individual objectors.
KGG is fighting tooth and nail the name change from Grahamstown to Makhanda and has indicated it will take the minister to court to reverse his decision.
“What we now want to know is how the minister could have applied his mind to a submission he never received,” said joint KGG co-ordinators Jock McConnachie and Sigidla Ndumo in a statement.
Ndumo and McConnachie have maintained Mthethwa never seriously intended applying his mind to the objections to changing the name.
They say he has failed to follow legal protocol from day one. An inadequate and faulty public consultation process was followed by a defective notice of his intention to change the name of the city to Makhanda. The notice had failed to notify people they had a month to object to the proposed name change, says the KGG.
Objections, including those of the KGG, were responded to in a standard fashion in the form of reference to a letter from the South African Geographic Names Council (SAGNC) chair Johnny Mohlala.
The letter states that objections to the proposed name change were the same as those previously submitted to and rejected by the SAGNC. The letter advises the minister that the objections should be rejected for the same reasons but fails to explain what these were.
“The question now arises how the minister could consider the KGG’s objection if it was never collected? We are convinced that the minister did not himself apply his mind to the objections as the law requires and that his ‘final decision’ was based on the inadequate reasons provided by the SAGNC.”
The KGG said this had added yet another arrow to its quiver or reasons to challenge the minister’s final decision on the name change.
Mthethwa has indicated that he believes the letter of the law was followed in the process leading to the name change and that the change had largely been embraced.
His spokesperson Asanda Magaqa said the threat of litigation had been repeatedly made even before the process was concluded.
“That has been a clear indication of KGG’s aversion and opposition to the department and government’s programme of transforming the heritage landscape of this country and its commitment to blocking the renaming of Grahamstown to Makhanda,” she said.