Cape Town - Western Cape and Eastern Cape government officials recently met to continue protracted talks over the repatriation of historical documents, including court and municipal records, belonging to the Eastern Cape people.
Though both provinces have at different periods felt that the Eastern Cape lacks the capacity to store these documents, the Eastern Cape government adopted a December 2021 report by the Eastern Cape Arts and Culture portfolio committee which recommended that its government expedite the repatriation process.
According to a source privy to the negotiations, the bone of contention was initially storage and transportation of the documents to the Eastern Cape.
While officials agreed on digital archiving, the Western Cape bemoaned the costs of this process.
Despite years of talks, the governments are yet to agree on a memorandum of understanding.
Eastern Cape Arts and Culture spokesperson Andile Nduna said the talks began in 2007, with the most recent meeting held in July this year.
From 1651 to 1994, documents pertaining to the Cape Colony – which adjoined the modern-day Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape – were mostly administered in Cape Town and, to a lesser extent, Pretoria.
Western Cape Cultural Affairs and Sport spokesperson, Tania Colyn, said these documents were transferred to the Archive and Records Service, which is situated in Roeland Street, Gardens.
Nduna said: “In terms of an update regarding the negotiations about the repatriation of those archival records, the province has not met any resistance. Engagements between the two provinces are ongoing and a memorandum of agreement is close to being signed, since meetings in this regard are advanced,” he said.
Colyn said the inter-repository repatriation policy for archival records dictates that certain conditions must be met before records can be moved.
“These conditions were assessed together with the Eastern Cape Archives and they confirmed that they do not have appropriate storage facilities or professional capacity to move and store the records, which amount to over 4 000 linear metres,” Colyn said.
She said an agreement was reached that the Eastern Cape Archives office would prefer to receive digital access to the records as this would solve the question of storage space of the physical records.
However, Colyn said, digitising archival records is expensive and lengthy but has started. “But it will take a number of years to complete as there are many facets to this endeavour,” she said.
Nduna said the handover depends on the departments agreeing to a memorandum.
“The principle of archiving on its own is an indication that those records possess a value that allows them to be kept permanently. These records are beneficial to Eastern Cape communities,” Nduna said.
Nduna and Colyn quashed speculation about a former colonial government trying to buy some archives.
Nduna said: “However, there is a huge possibility that there might be records of keen interest for the Dutch government in the Western Cape, since historical facts speak of the first ship of the Dutch East India Company landing in the Western Cape in 1652.”
Nduna said they’ve tried to assist its public whenever they request records held in the Western Cape archive(but he had no record of the last request. He said during 2007’s first discussions, “it was concluded that we were not in a position to host those records in terms of the state of our repositories”.
“And to add (to) that, the archive is determined by its collection. The provenance principle (of archiving) does not allow a group to be separated,” Nduna said.
Pressed on whether they now have the capacity of preserving the records, Nduna said:
“We are of the view that the memorandum of understanding is key in addressing these and since it is yet to be discussed in detail and agreed upon, we wouldn’t (want) our counterparts to feel that we are negotiating in bad faith when they read in the media responses to such imperative questions. (sic).
“It's suffice to say though that the details for digitising those records will be discussed in the partnership/agreement to be concluded by the two provinces (sic)."