Pretorias - There is no place called Tshwane – and the name should be used only to describe the metropolitan municipality, according to AfriForum.
The civil rights organisation filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of South Africa yesterday against a television advertisement for Outsurance that is being broadcast regularly.
In the advertisement, reference is made to a family living in a street in Tshwane.
AfriForum claimed in the formal complaint that in this case Tshwane was used as a place name or geographic name, and not as the name of a municipality.
The City of Tshwane still intends to register the geographic area that constitutes the municipality as a city with the name Tshwane.
However, the main stumbling blocks for the finalisation of the name change were court actions and a misinformation campaign that the renaming would be expensive, polarise South Africans and vaporise Afrikaners and minority heritage and culture, according to the municipality.
The consequence of the delay is that the city is still known as Pretoria, but the municipality is Tshwane, almost nine years since the City of Tshwane approved the proposed name change.
The chief executive of AfriForum, Kallie Kriel, said the use of Tshwane as a place name or geographic name in the advert was misleading and in conflict with the code of ASA.
This use created the impression that Tshwane was the name of a place or was a geographic name, Kallie said.
In 2005, the City of Tshwane failed to comply with an ASA ruling on a similar complaint by AfriForum against the City of Tshwane and subsequent rulings.
At the time, the ASA ruled that it was misleading to use Tshwane as a geographic name.
An alert was issued to all ASA media members as a result, instructing them not to accept any advertising from the municipality about its general destination marketing activities.
The Tshwane metro’s appeal and subsequent legal action against the ASA failed, and the ruling therefore still applied, Kriel said.
“The facts have not changed since the previous decision as the name Tshwane has still not been recorded as a place name in the government’s Geographic Names Database. The use of Tshwane as a place name when referring to either Centurion where the Outsurance advert was produced, or Pretoria, is thus still misleading.
“If Outsurance was to refer in the advert to Tshwane metro, it would be correct. The use of Tshwane without the word ‘metro’ is erroneously creating the impression that it is a place name.”
Mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa said the city needed to be better prepared to deal with substantive issues on the name change and find ways to engage them in an attempt to reach common ground.
“We believe that the renaming of Pretoria to Tshwane is a selfless effort of rebuilding and repositioning Tshwane as the country’s capital, and should complement and anchor other social-economic and nation building initiatives of moving South Africa forward.
“Therefore it is my belief that dialogue should drive the final phase of this process and all parties should engage constructively and appreciate that the name of South Africa’s capital is beyond the local interest.”
Pretoria News