The decision on whether the government will change the name of Johannesburg International airport to OR Tambo International airport will be announced in Parliament later this month, the Ministry of Arts and Culture said on Wednesday.
”Minister [of Arts and Culture Pallo] Jordan will make an official statement on the status of the airport name change as soon as he is allocated a slot in Parliament when it reopens in mid-August,” it said in a statement.
The ministry announcement follows the Monday midnight cut-off for submissions on the name change. According to the ministry, hundreds of submissions were received.
”The minister … would like to express his thankfulness to the hundreds of people who have written to him to object to the renaming of the airport … It is encouraging to note that the … process has deeply moved hundreds of citizens to play an active role in the country’s hard-earned participatory democracy.”
There had been numerous people opposed to the name change, while some had welcomed it as a ”significant development in the right direction”.
The ministry said it should be noted that changing place names was an internationally accepted practice, fully supported and endorsed by the United Nations.
”In fact, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended that the renaming of geographic features be a form of ‘symbolic reparation’ to address an unjust past.”
It is also important to emphasise renaming ”cannot be a number-crunching game that concerns itself with how many people are opposed to a specific name change”.
Following the notice in the Government Gazette on June 30 this year to rename the airport, it is ”now with the legal rights of all stake-holders to implement the new name through signage and other forms”.
If there was any reversal of this decision, it would be announced by the minister when he made his statement in Parliament, the ministry said. — Sapa