Grahamstown is gone, Graaff-Reinet is changing, and Port Alfred is the next battleground for name changes in South Africa.
The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture says that the 2018 name change of Grahamstown to Makhanda is final and settled, with the changes for Graaff-Reinet still being challenged.
Meanwhile, **the process to change the name of Port Alfred **has yet to reach the South African Geographic Names Council (SAGNC)—with court challenges already lined up.
The department was responding to a Parliamentary Q&A from Action SA MP, Athol Trollip, who questioned the processes followed to change the names.
According to DSAC Minister Gayton McKenzie, the three towns specifically raised in the question had differing statuses.
The name change for Grahamstown to Makhanda was approved in 2018. The matter is considered finalised.
The town was founded in 1812 by Lieutenant-Colonel John Graham, who established military headquarters on the site of Church Square.
The town quickly grew to one of the most important cities in the Cape Colonies after Cape Town.
Its new namesake, Makhanda, was a Xhosa warrior and prophet who led an 1819 attack on Grahamstown during the Cape Frontier Wars.
The SAGNC considered the application submitted by the Eastern Cape Provincial Geographical Names Committee, and it was satisfied that the correct processes were followed.
McKenzie said that the records show that interested and affected parties were notified and invited to participate in the consultation process.
Public notices were published, stakeholder meetings and public hearings were convened, and written objections and representations were received and considered.
Objections were lodged by, among others, the Keep Grahamstown Grahamstown campaign and the local residents’ and ratepayers’ structures, and were considered by the committees.
The matter was eventually escalated to court in 2019 on the grounds that not enough consultation was done.
However, the court ultimately ruled that the correct procedures were followed, and the name change was finalised in 2022.
“On 10 March 2022, a Full Bench of the Eastern Cape Division dismissed the appeal…confirming the lawfulness of the process followed in the renaming of Grahamstown to Makhanda,” McKenzie said.
Addressing a more recent name change, and one that is still to come, McKenzie noted that the change of Graaff-Reinet to Robert Sobukwe Town is currently being challenged.
The DSAC Minister initially declined to approve the proposed name change of Graaff-Reinet on the basis that the application was not supported by sufficient information, and referred it back to the SAGNC.
However, it was later approved and gazetted by McKenzie. The matter is now the subject of pending review proceedings in the High Court, he said.
“On the advice of Legal Services, the department will address the substantive issues concerning the process in those proceedings and does not consider it appropriate to canvass the merits in this reply,” he said.
“The adequacy of the consultation process is directly at issue in the pending review proceedings. It would not be appropriate for the Department to canvass the merits of that question while the proceedings are before the High Court.”
The minister said the department will deliver the record of the decision to change the town’s name to the court.
Regarding the proposed name change of Port Alfred to iCawa or iCoyi, the minister said that these changes have not yet been submitted to the council, and thus no recommendation has yet been made.
Despite this, the minister noted that there are already pending High Court proceedings directed at the public participation process undertaken by the Eastern Cape Provincial Geographical Names Committee.
Objections to the provincial public participation process have been raised by local ratepayers, residents, and business structures, and proceedings have been instituted in the High Court.
“The outcome of the pending proceedings is awaited,” McKenzie said.
“The Department is not the decision-maker in the pending High Court proceedings and will be guided by the outcome of those proceedings.”
Port Alfred was established in 1860 in honour of Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s son.
However, its history dates back before that, when the town was actually two separate settlements on opposite sides of the Kowie River.
The settlements were formed by British settlers in the early 1820s.
