Dear Editor
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will not take the gazetted name change of Kirkwood to Nqweba lying down and will be interacting with our local communities to ensure that as many objections as possible are submitted to the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.
The name change follows the approval by the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Minister Zizi Kodwa, in terms of the South African Geographical Names Council Act in the Government Gazette dated 22 March 2024.
The 183 objections and more than 600 online petition signatories garnered by the DA have been ignored by the chairperson of the Eastern Cape Provincial Geographical Names Committee (ECPGNC), Christian Martin, in what was clearly a pre-determent decision that was bulldozed through.
Through the whole process Martin failed to act unbiasedly by referring to those in favour of the name change as “us” and those opposed as “them” – further creating division in the community.
The DA on three different dates submitted a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to Martin, requesting the name/s of the applicant/s for the name changes of three towns in the Sundays River Valley Local Municipality (SRVLM). He failed to confirm receipt of the PAIA Application, forwarded a confidential email to the SRVLM Mayor and failed to confirm receipt of submitted objections and petitions. This behaviour alone should be grounds for declaring the public consultation process void.
The process and public consultations were flawed from the outset and residents living in affected areas were never timeously informed of public consultation meetings on the proposed name changes. On 19 February 2024 the DA wrote to Martin to bring the flawed process to his attention but we were yet again ignored.
We would like to encourage residents to stand their ground and object again to the proposed name change at the following e-mail addresses Nontsikelelob@dsac.gov.za and NambitaM@dsac.gov.za. These objections must be done within the next 30 days.
The government’s focus should be on changing lives and not changing names. The DA will continue to fight against the proposed name changes and with a proper mandate after the 29 May General Election we will rescue our small towns, the Eastern Cape and South Africa.
Regards
Cllr Minette Bosman
DA Sundays River Valley Caucus
