While the country is falling apart under ANC rule and people’s lives are disrupted by daily power and water outages, government is still zealously busy changing names after 30 years in power.
It is bordering on the absurd. In a last-ditch effort, this failed government keeps squandering money on name changes, which are unnecessary, meaningless and serve absolutely no purpose. Still, the process continues. And everything with a name is in the cross hairs; everything from towns and streets to mountains and settlements.
The most recent changes announced in the Government Gazette affect Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal, which was renamed uMnambithi, William Nicol Drive in Johannesburg, which is now Winnie Mandela Drive, and Kirkwood in the Eastern Cape, which will now be known as Nqweba.
Several other name changes are also on the cards for the Eastern Cape, these include Graaff-Reinet to Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, Adendorp to Kwa Mseki Bishop Limba, Aberdeen to Camdeboo and Nieu Bethesda to Kwa Noheleni.
These are clearly desperate measures as part of a last-ditch attempt at populism, much like the recent incitement to illegally occupy land in Lourierpark in Bloemfontein in an effort to rack up votes ahead of the upcoming elections.
The ANC has had 30 years to make the right impression on the people through good governance and service delivery. But the opposite happened.
Whether a name change will influence people’s decision of who to vote for while they have to live without power or water among streams of sewage remains to be seen.
How the ANC manages to plan all the wrong things so cleverly and carry them out seamlessly, while it fails to do the right things with all the necessary resources at its disposal, remains a mystery.
South Africa simply cannot afford any more senseless name changes. It cannot afford to keep the ANC in power either. The only change that is absolutely necessary is a change in government.
There is an opportunity to bring that about on 29 May this year. The time to restore and rebuild is here.
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