An Eastern Cape artist who claims to be the rightful designer of the SA flag has dragged Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa to the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to compel him to provide details of how the flag was created.
Thembani Hastings Mqhayi, 55, claims the national flag was "plagiarised" from his original work, and that the design was erroneously credited to Frederick Brownell.
Flags, Symbols & Currency of South Africa
Flags, Symbols & Currency of South Africa
The National Flag of South Africa was officially adopted on April 27, 1994. The flag was designed by Mr. Fred Brownell – a former South African State Herald.
The National Flag of South Africa features two equal width horizontal bands of red (top) and blue (bottom) separated by a central green band that splits into a horizontal Y - the arms of which end at the corners of the flag’s hoist side. The Y contains a black isosceles triangle from which the arms are separated by narrow yellow bands. The red and blue bands are separated from the green band and its arms by narrow white stripes. At the time it was adopted, the South African flag was the world’s only flag to include six colors. The red, white, and blue colors were taken from the colors of the Boer Republics. The yellow, black, and green are taken from the African National Congress (ANC) flag. The Y form represents the