This week sports, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa officially gazetted changes to the names of a number of towns and two airports in Eastern Cape. The city previously known as Port Elizabeth is now called Gqeberha, while the airports of PE and East London have been renamed the Dawid Stuurman and the King Phalo airports, respectively.

Predictably, the renaming has sparked outrage across the country for different reasons. Overwhelmingly, the objecting narrative is that given our pressing crises as a country, we can ill-afford to “waste” money on seemingly futile things that have no material impact on our daily life...