Major legal battles over the recent decision to change the names of East London and Graaff-Reinet are on the cards.
Sport, arts and culture minister Gayton McKenzie indicated this week that he would oppose AfriForum’s bid to overturn the recent renaming of Graaff-Reinet to Robert Sobukwe Town.
Meanwhile, McKenzie’s counterpart in the Eastern Cape, MEC Sibulele Ngongo, is being dragged to court after allegedly failing to provide a nonprofit organisation with the reasons why East London’s name had to be changed to KuGompo City.
The name changes were published in the government gazette by McKenzie earlier in 2026, drawing widespread objections from concerned parties, including thousands of citizens who signed various petitions objecting to them.
In May, AfriForum took McKenzie, the South African Geographical Names Council, its counterparts in the Eastern Cape and the Beyers Naude municipality to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria after the decision in February to rename Graaff-Reinet, despite a number of objections.
When no response was received from McKenzie regarding AfriForum’s application, the matter was recently placed on the unopposed roll.
However, the state attorney’s office in Pretoria wrote to AfriForum’s lawyers this week, indicating the minister’s intention to oppose the application.
The state attorney has yet to file its opposing papers, and a court date has not yet been set.
Eastern Cape nonprofit Friends of Schalk The Movement is now taking Ngongo to court for her alleged failure to provide it with reasons in writing as to why East London’s name needed to change to KuGompo City.
The NPO wrote to the MEC on March 4, demanding that she explain how the decision to change the city’s name was reached, but reportedly received no response.
In its notice of motion, seen by the Daily Dispatch, the nonprofit requests Ngongo to provide it with the reasons for the renaming decision and to explain why she failed to respond to its legal letter in March.
Friends of Schalk’s Buffalo City Metro-based attorney, Brandon Blignaut of MKB Attorneys, confirmed the lawsuit, saying they had filed their legal papers at the East London High Court this week.
Ngongo has been given until Tuesday next week to notify the attorneys of her intention to oppose their court application and 15 working days to file her answering affidavit.
If no such notice of intention to oppose was filed, Blignaut said, they would go to court on September 1, “or [as] soon thereafter as counsel may be heard”.
The NPO’s director, Schalk van der Sandt, said on Wednesday that while the NPO was not opposed in principle to East London being renamed, its complaint was that an adequate or broad consultation process had not taken place before the decision was made.
“We chose to go to court because no-one was consulted about the name change.
“There was no public participation involved in the name change, which we believe is a total waste of ratepayers’ or taxpayers’ money and resources,” he said.
In his affidavit attached to the court papers, Van der Sandt said his NPO had been approached by a number of “affected residents”, asking it to facilitate the court process after they received no joy from Ngongo regarding their objections to the name change.
He said nearly 8,000 residents had signed petitions objecting to the name change.
He said it was a concern that the objections were “ignored” and that the MEC’s alleged failure to respond to the NPO’s March correspondence was in violation of Section 5 of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act No 3 of 2000.
Ngongo’s spokesperson, Zolani Siramza, declined to comment on these developments on Wednesday.
“The department will respect the judicial process and will not make any further comment while the matter is pending,” Siramza said.
Asked to comment on the court challenge to the renaming of East London, BCM spokesperson Luzuko Buku said the name-change process was a function spearheaded by the national government, through McKenzie’s department.
“Any organisation has the right to explore legally available options of disputing the name with the relevant executive authority.
“It is crucial to understand that the renaming of place names seeks to undo colonial-era designations and names.
“We thus want to be clear that we do not want to voice any opinion on things that seek to fight against efforts towards decoloniality.”
Asked about the effect of the name change and the costs associated with it, Buku said: “The impact of the town name change and the quantification of cost thereof has not yet been done by the city.
“This is more so considering the fact that there are still some organisations still fighting the name change.”
AfriForum’s head of cultural affairs, Alana Bailey, said its objection in respect of the renaming of Graaff-Reinet was based “on the fact that the Eastern Cape provincial policy regulating place names emphasises that the renaming of places of particular historical significance should only be considered in exceptional cases.
“With regards to Graaff-Reinet, with its legacy of 240 years, AfriForum is of the opinion that no such circumstances can be found,” she said.
Daily Dispatch