Chabane set to be immortalised
DECEASED ANC bigwig Collins Chabane looks set to have the proposed new Limpopo municipality named after him.
The proposed new municipality, which will include Vuwani, Hlanganani and Malamulele, is currently known by its code name: LIM345.
Yesterday, the Vhembe district municipality kick-started the naming process of the new municipality, which will have two legs of public participation – one at the Malamulele Boxing Gym and another at the Njhakanjhaka Hall. Outgoing Vhembe mayor Tshitereke Matibe asked stakeholders to come out with possible names of the council.
He said people still have 21 days to make submissions about their preferred names. The ANC, its ally Cosatu and the Congress of Traditional Leaders of SA all proposed Chabane’s name. Crowds, led by the ANC Youth League, with posters written “Collins Chabane Municipality” shouted “CCM”, abbreviation of the former.
At Chabane’s funeral in Malamulele in March last year after his death in a car accident, Chief Shilungwa Cydrick Mhinga told President Jacob Zuma that in honour of the late cabinet minister, the government should grant the area its own municipality and name it after him. Zuma then responded in Zulu:
(I heard you chief).” Chabane’s widow Khensani welcomed the possible honour for her husband.
“As a family, we welcome it because it will ensure that his name is not forgotten; it means the hard work he put in the service of the people would not be in vain,” she said. –