The Democratic Alliance (DA) will continue to fight against the Schröder Street name change in Upington despite it being passed in Dawid Kruiper’s municipal council meeting today.
The DA gathered 7 055 signatures for our petition against the name change but the voices of the community were ignored.
In contrast, the ANC collected only 1 317 names on its petition, in favour of the name change. This same petition was tabled in council today. The petition was only submitted yesterday, as opposed to last week in accordance with regulations, and did not appear before the advice committee.
On closer scrutiny of the ANC petition, the DA has found evidence that the petition is fraudulent, as it contains the name of a deceased person known to the DA. The petition also unscrupulously contains manipulated data from DA forms, intended to serve as so-called signatures in favour of the name change.
Based on the above, the DA today laid fraud charges against the Mayor, David Kazi, for his role in allowing this petition to serve before council.
It is increasingly clear that the name change is a purely politically motivated matter.
The DA is outraged that the Dawid Kruiper municipality shows no regard for the sentiments of the affected community, who will not only lose a positive piece of history with the name change, but will also face financial losses in having to implement the name change.
We are also questioning why the municipality has made no attempt to do the groundwork to provide a full cost analysis of the name change.
The DA will continue to fight against the name change. We will submit our petition to the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature’s Petitions Committee and submit a complaint to the Northern Cape Provincial Geographic Name Change Committee, while we also consider taking further action.