ANC sues City of Cape Town over logo

Cape Town - The ANC is convinced it has built a “formidable” case against the City of Cape Town, which it accused of “arrogantly” going over the heads of residents when adopting its new logo last year.

The party’s chief whip in the Western Cape, Xolani Sotashe, said an application to declare invalid the council’s resolution to overhaul the city’s rebranding would most likely be successful.

This application was heard in the Western Cape High Court as both parties submitted their heads of argument on Monday.

The ANC lodged the case against the city after it emerged that the decision to change the logo had not been opened for public comment.

The controversial new logo and corporate identity were approved in February last year, despite strong resistance and warnings from opposition parties that the decision could blow up in the city’s face.

It was revealed the city had paid over R313 000 for the new design. However, it was reported that the cost of implementing the new logo could run into millions.

At the time, the ANC had threatened to apply for a high court interdict to stop the logo from being introduced.

However, the matter was only recently taken to court as part of an application by the ANC to have council’s resolution to change the logo declared invalid.

In his argument, the party’s lawyer, William Mokhari, said just as changing the names of streets required the public’s participation, so should changing “the face of the city”.

“The logo is part of residents’ identity, why should they not have their say?”

He said introducing the new logo was therefore an “unlawful administrative act”.

But the city’s lawyers fired back, pointing out that nowhere in the Municipal Systems Act did it state that changing the city’s logo required the input from the public, and therefore was a lawful decision that adhered to all processes of council.

Advocate Geoff Budlender SC, representing the city, said the act of transforming the city’s corporate image could not be equated to changing street names, as the latter is a public space and the former is how the city chooses to communicate with itsresidents.

He pointed out that many other cities had rebranded their corporate image without engaging in public participation because “this was not required by the law”.

Both parties had concluded their submissions by 4pm. Judge Rosheni Allie said she would reserve her judgment until a later date.

It must be noted that it is unlikely that the city will be asked to reverse the change to its corporate image if the ANC’s application is successful.

The logo has already been implemented as part of ad campaigns, flyers and insideofficial city buildings.

Switching back to the old logo will cost ratepayers even more money.

But this is not what the ANC is aiming for.

Sotashe said: “We want to send a message to the DA and the City of Cape Town that they cannot just trample all over the residents of Cape Town and simply just ignore what they have to say.

“They need to learn to respect people’s opinions.”

Mayor Patricia de Lille’s spokeswoman, Priya Reddy, said: “We do respect the court proceedings and await the outcome. The roll out of our new brand identity has been highly successful and is now an integral part of the organisation.”

kieran.legg@inl.co.za

Cape Argus

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