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KIMBERLEY AIRPORT SET TO BE RENAMED ULYSSES GOGI MODISE AIRPORT

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The ANC in the Northern Cape has taken to social media to mobilise on its choice of name change for the Kimberley Airport as the Ulysses Gogi Modise Airport. This follows Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) calling upon the general public to make name change submissions to corporate.affairs@airports.co.za or hand deliver to nearest airport before this Wednesday, 06 June 2018.

ACSA cited the renaming of Cape Town International Airport, East London Airport, Port Elizabeth International Airport and Kimberley Airport as what “forms part of the Transformation of Heritage Landscape government programme.”

The Kimberley Airport is likely to be renamed Ulysses Gogi Modise Airport and garner much support owing to the province’s Department of Sports, Arts and Culture also having endorsed the name. The Department is an interested party to this process in respect of its responsibility in fostering transformative heritage which also straddles name changes.

The deceased Ulysses Gogi Modise was born in Kimberley on 23 December 1942 as Julius Gogi Kgabegenyane. He was posthumously bestowed with the Order of Mendi for Bravery in Silver in acknowledgement of having been one of the first youths to skip the country to join the ANC’s military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and for serving in the Luthuli Detachment. Modise served the ANC in exile as a topmost intelligence operative and was appointed post-1994 as the Northern Cape’s head of intelligence.

He died on 30 May 2007 with his funeral drawing fellow decorated spooks such as ANC stalwart Billy Masetlha and many other ANC veterans of national repute.  He is fondly remembered for having steadfastly remained a volunteer and functionary of the ANC without any aspirations of assuming leadership positions within all levels of its different facets.

The name of the founder of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe who died in Kimberley in 1978 amid his banishment after being released from Robben Island in 1969, is also expected to be a strong contender.

By Staff Reporter