Tshwane must put old street names back up

Hans Strijdom‚ Vermeulen and DF Malan will once again appear on Pretoria's streets alongside their replacements‚ Solomon Mahlangu‚ Madiba and E’skia Mphahlele.

The City of Tshwane on Tuesday lost its bid to challenge a ruling made in April 2013 that interdicted it from removing the capital's old street names. The municipality took down the old street names‚ which temporarily appeared with the new names‚ in 2013 while the legal challenge by minority rights lobby group AfriForum was still pending.

After losing the appeal‚ the City must now put the old street name signs back up with the new names by 1 August.

Tshwane mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa on Tuesday said that AfriForum's "right-wing rhetoric" that the money spent on removing the street names could have been used to improve service delivery implied that service delivery could only be obtained “in exchange for retaining all forms of apartheid era heritage‚ identity and history rather than defence of our hard-earned freedom and unity of our people”.

AfriForum's lawyer‚ Werner Human‚ said the ruling was a victory for all who were “opposed to the cultural vandalism by the Tshwane Metro Council”.

Human said that the City targeted specific street names with exceptional historical cultural value for Afrikaners and other minorities.

He said the Council had acted maliciously when they removed the old street names after learning that AfriForum was in the process of obtaining an order to retain the old street name signs.

City of Tshwane spokesman Blessing Manale said that the municipality will appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

“In our view the ruling will not pass the test of constitutionality as it curtails the administrative functions of the municipality‚ and [tramples] separation of powers‚” he said.

He said the decision insisted on the display of a dual name plate signage for an unspecified period simply to satisfy the “colonialist egos and apartheid nostalgia of the AfriForum”.

Manale said that when the new name plates were made and placed‚ it cost the City less than R2-million but that they retained the old plates. He said the costs involved in putting the old plates back up would therefore not be “astronomical”.

RDM News Wire.