Artist disputing national flag design ownership

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

- MANYANE MANYANE [e-mail]

Mqhayi, who claimed that 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 that 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.

Mqhayi said Brownell, who was credited for the design of the flag, had stolen the designs and submitted them as his own.

The matter is currently at the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, after Mqhayi filed papers against former Sport, Arts and Culture minister, Nathi Mthethwa, as well as the State Herald in 2022.

In a statement issued on Freedom Day, Mqhayi said it has been 30 years since the country gained political independence from the apartheid regime in 1994, but that only levelled the political landscape while the arts and creative heritage suffered a great historical loss.