EC artist challenges government over flag design ownership

EASTERN Cape artist, Thembani Hastings Mqhayi, has expressed his disappointment against the government's failure to resolve his ongoing dispute over the national flag.

- MANYANE MANYANE

Mqhayi, who claimed the flag had his design, said the country flew a "questionable flag" to celebrate Freedom Day.

He claimed that his work was erroneously credited to Fredericks Brownell, who served at the National Archives of South Africa as State Herald between 1982 and 2002.

Mqhayi, who is the manager for Cultural Affairs in Amathole District, East London, claimed the flag is one of the five different original designs he submitted in early 1994 to the office of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.

This was after the late former president Nelson Mandela, in 1993, made a call that artists and citizens submit designs for the flag of the new and democratic South Africa.