The Department of Arts and Culture has received ”hundreds” of submissions on the proposed renaming of Johannesburg International airport to OR Tambo International airport, the department reported on Monday.
The deadline for submissions is at midnight on Monday.
Ministry spokesperson Sandile Memela said that submissions were streaming in ”every moment of every hour” ahead of the deadline, but declined to comment further.
Pressed to say how many submissions had been received on the Johannesburg airport name change, he said there were ”hundreds”.
He hoped to be able to make a fuller statement on the matter after noon on Tuesday.
Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan had announced on June 30 in the Government Gazette that more than 50 place names, including those of the airport and Lydenburg in Mpumalanga, would be changed, Beeld newspaper reported earlier in July.
Department of Transport spokesperson Collen Msibi told the Mail & Guardian Online on Monday July 10 that ”an overwhelming number of people” have expressed support for the name change, though he could not give exact figures or say whether any objections had been received.
The department is involved in the name change because the airport is one of its assets, though it is managed by the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa).
Department of Arts and Culture spokesperson Premy Appalraju said the Ekurhuleni metro, Johannesburg metro, South African Airways, Acsa and the Tambo family were consulted on the name change. Though the department had received ”some objections from individuals”, there was overwhelming approval of the change, she said.
Appalraju could not say what the name change would cost, but said the expenditure would form part of ”transformation issues, as requested in the Budget”.
”The feeling is that you cannot quantify … reconciliation in monetary terms,” she said, referring to the airport’s renaming as ”symbolic reparation”.
Objections
The official opposition Democratic Alliance, however, pointed out on July 10 that it had already strongly objected to the name change in the past, and that its gazetting came as a ”major surprise”.
DA transport spokesperson Stuart Farrow said the renaming of the airport is a massively expensive exercise for the sake of change and a waste of public funds, also pointing to the cost implications for airlines and businesses at the airport, among others.
Farrow conceded that South Africans would likely easily adapt to the name change, but said foreign visitors would find it hard to relate the name of the airport to their destination.
In January this year, Ekurhuleni mayor Duma ka Nkosi said a formal request had been submitted to the departments of transport and arts and culture to effect the name change, and that naming the airport after Tambo had political and historical significance. — Sapa