The R72 between Kenton and Alexandria.. Business and Tourism Alexandria, farmrs and other stakeholders say the ECPGNC must come and talk to them there.
Any proposal about changing Alexandria’s name must be discussed in Alexandria, says the Alexandria Business and Tourism Organisation. Meanwhile, a deputy minister, and a historian, have weighed in on the proposed name changes for three places in Ndlambe.
The name changes proposed by the Eastern Cape Provincial Geographical Names Committee (ECPGNC) are Alexandria to Nkosi Chungwa or Emnyameni; Port Alfred to iCoyi or iCawa; and the Kowie River to iQoyi.
At a heated stakeholder meeting in the Port Alfred Civic Centre on August 6 (subsequently referred to by the committee as a public awareness session), a follow-up stakeholders consultation meeting was set for Wednesday September 10 at 10am in the same venue. Meanwhile, a coalition of civil society organisations say the move is hasty and poorly researched and will cost ratepayers and the tourism industry millions. Under the banner of Keep Port Alfred and Alexandria (KPAA), the Port Alfred Business Forum (PABF), Sunshine Coast Tourism Port Alfred (SCT-PA) and the Port Alfred Ratepayers and Residents Association (PARRA) are preparing to oppose the name-change committee’s proposals.
While Alexandria is included in the acronym, chairperson of the Alexandria Business and Tourism Organisation Patrick Jokana last week emphasised the need to consult with local stakeholders. Following a meeting at the Masonic Hall in Alexandria on Monday August 18, Jokana told Talk of the Town that they had resolved to write to the ECPGNC.
“We will write to them and tell them that any discussion about a name change for Alexandria must take place in Alexandria,” Jokana said. “Our consensus is that any discussions about Alexandria must take place among the people of Alexandria. We will not be part of anything before Alexandria stakeholders – businesses and the community – are consulted. We can’t discuss this in Port Alfred: they must come to Alexandria.”
At the same time, at a DA public meeting in Port Alfred, deputy electricity minister Samantha Graham-Mare encouraged residents in their bid to oppose the name changes. A veteran of the name-change landscape, she was integral to the successful opposition to name changes for her home town of Graaff-Reinet, as well as New Bethesda, Aberdeen and Adendorf. That opposition was on similar grounds to those the KPAA have identified.
“It just takes a request from one person, who can be from anywhere – they could even live in America – for this process to be set in motion,” Graham-Mare said to a packed NG Kerk hall.
Describing historical inaccuracies and the bussing in of people from Gqeberha to public meetings in Graaff-Reinet, she said the process was purely politically motivated.
“The chairperson has an agenda, which is to change every name in South Africa,” Graham-Mare said. “Christian Martin [i.e. the ECPGNC chair] just wants to annoy people.”
Graham-Mare offered specific advice about how to successfully oppose the Ndlambe name-change bid and urged community members to attend and raise their objections at every public meeting on the subject. “You have to show up and speak,” she said.
Ndlambe DA caucus leader Skura Venene later added to that, saying, “It’s you as ratepayers who will pay for that name change through a decline in tourism. “We will fight it: we want Port Alfred to remain Port Alfred!” he said to applause from the packed suburban venue.
What does history say?
In response to a request for the applicants’ motivations for the name changes, the Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture sent TOTT a document that is summarised below:
Alexandria to Nkosi Chungwa: He was the warrior Chief of the AmaGqunukhwebe Nation and was killed by colonial soldiers at Emnyameni
Alexandria to Emnyameni: Known as this long before colonial occupation, it means place of the rainbow.
Port Alfred to iCoyi or iCawa Known as this long before colonial occupation, the name refers to the shape of a pipe (ie smoking pipe). iCoyi and iCawa are variations of the same name.
Kowie River to iQoyi: As above.
Talk of the Town asked historian Jeff Peires to comment on these motivations, the name change proposals for Ndlambe, and historical names in the Eastern Cape in general. Here is what he said:
“Mnyameni has always been the isiXhosa name for the Bushmans River, from where it rises in the Suurberge near Addo. For this reason, eMnyameni might be better, meaning ‘at the Bushmans River’. Although the usual name-change practice is to drop the ‘e’ , for example the name ‘Engcobo’ was changed to Ngcobo, and Cradock has become “Nxuba” (Fish River) not “eNxuba.”
“The Chungwa reference is correct, but the name would be more appropriate for Congoskraal near Nanaga, and in any case, the amaGqunukhwebe swear by the praise, ‘Ndifung’uChungwa efel’ eMnyameni’.
“ ‘iCoyi’ is simply the correct isiXhosa spelling of ‘Kowie’. ‘iQoyi’ is a small river near Bedford.”
Peires said the assertions about pipes and rainbows were romanticised and inaccurate.
“ ‘Emnyameni’ means the ‘the black place’ – that refers to the dark forests along the river,” Peires said.
“I can see the argument about tourism and branding, but [they] should get off their high horses. Port Alfred was originally named Port Frances after the wife of Frontier Commandant Colonel Henry Somerset. It was changed to Port Alfred in the 1860s in honour of the anticipated visit of Prince Alfred, (Queen Victoria’s second son), and he didn’t even bother to pitch up.
“Alexandria was known to its earliest Afrikaans residents (including the emergent Coloured community), as ‘Olifantshoek’. Alexandria was birthname of the future Queen Victoria, and its first hotelier named its first hotel the Alexandria Hotel in her honour.
“After the Nationalists took over, they themselves were embarrassed by this, and the official pre-1994 place-names book misleadingly suggests that they got the name from a retired dominee of the Dutch Reformed Church.
“Unlike ‘Makhanda’, which is an artificial imposition, both Mnyameni and Coyi are the original names of the places involved. The white residents of former Queenstown have accepted its similar name change to ‘Komani’ with a good grace, and I wish the white residents of former Lower Albany would do the same,” Peires said.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE PROPOSED NAME CHANGES?
This article was first published in Talk of the Town, August 21, 2025. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays
