Serious reservations about the present composition of the provincial committee of the South African Geographical Names Council and evidence of gross abuse by the Makhado Municipality of so-called "consultative" meetings on the name change issue surfaced at the very first meeting between the Chairpersons Association (CA) of Louis Trichardt and the provincial committee.

The wilful neglect to restore the name Louis Trichardt on municipal and provincial signage after the High Court decision in 2006 was described at the meeting as: "Contempt of court" and a "contemptuous, malicious defiance of the constitution of South Africa."

The meeting took place in Polokwane on Thursday, March 13, under the chairmanship of Mr M Musitha, an ex-Makhado municipal councillor. It followed after the CA directed a written framework of objections about the Makhado Municipality’s renewed name change recommendation to the provincial committee. The letter refers to the municipal council’s refusal to respond to written requests from the CA and requests the provincial committee to furnish it with several relevant documents, to enable it to respond properly and to submit a proper presentation to the provincial committee. Without this, proper consultation was not possible.

Representatives of the CA made it clear that the meeting with the provincial committee can in no way be construed as a consultative meeting as, they state, the provincial committee cannot correct the injustices of the past. They also took the committee to task about its obvious lack of representivity, seeing that its members do not reflect the demography of the peoples of the province or the region. The CA delegation said it had serious reservations about the committee’s ability to do justice to the cultural heritage of various groups so obviously not represented on the provincial committee.

The provincial delegation took note of the CA’s reservations and also announced that they would be meeting with representatives of the Makhado Municipality in order to clarify the serious allegations about a repeated grossly flawed "consultative" process and failure to comply with the court order. Several members of the provincial committee afterwards expressed appreciation for the frank and transparent approach of the CA delegation.

The CA’s letter states that there is no justification for the name of Louis Trichardt to be changed to Makhado. They said the municipality should firstly have consulted all relevant people and stakeholders in respect of whether there was a need for any change before embarking on its manipulated process to pay lip service to a so-called consultative process.

The CA says the same mistakes during the previous attempt to change the name of Louis Trichardt to Makhado have been repeated and even more mistakes have been made. They say these mistakes are so grossly unjust that they are shocking. Reports from the wards apparently indicate a transparent and honest process had not been followed. Bus loads of "voters" were transported from ward to ward to "vote" instead of be consulted.

The CA again stated that the name Louis Trichardt meets the policies and principles of the SAGNC. They also argue that Louis Trichardt town was established in a geographic area which was original to Louis Trichardt and this area had not been called by any other name.

"The name Makhado is therefore not a correction of the name Louis Trichardt, as the spelling of Messina has been corrected to the name Musina. Louis Trichardt as a name is also not insulting. Therefore, from the views of the National Geographic Names Council and in terms of their guidelines and in terms of international guidelines, there is no justification to change the name to Makhado," the CA states.

"To change the name of Louis Trichardt to Makhado would be an unreasonable and totally unfounded destruction of a valuable cultural heritage, and will polarize and definitely not reconcile the people of this region," the CA added.