The Democratic Alliance on Monday accused the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) of ”brazen hypocrisy” in airing a radio advertisement for the African National Congress’s election launch in January, while refusing to accept a comparable add from the Inkatha Freedom Party.
DA communications spokesperson Dene Smuts said in a statement this was revealed in a reply to a parliamentary question she put to Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.
”Party-political advertisements are prohibited outside formal election periods,” Smuts said.
”In answer to my queries, the SABC told the minister that the ANC’s ad was not a party-political advertisement because it ‘announced the 92nd anniversary of the ANC’, and was therefore accepted by the KwaZulu-Natal regional sales manager.
”The IFP’s ad, however, in the eyes of the KwaZulu-Natal general manager of operations, acting on the recommendation of the regional sales manager, was indeed a political ad,” she said.
A political advertisement is defined in the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act as one that is intended or calculated to advance the interests of any political party, for which a broadcaster receives, directly or indirectly, any money or other consideration.
”It is by now a matter of public record that the SABC gave the same ANC election launch an hour-and-a-half of live TV coverage, while giving the DA one-and-a-half minutes and the IFP a similar number of seconds.”
The pretence that the advertisement was for the ”commemoration of the ANC’s birthday” was just as transparently misleading as the pretence that the ”president of the country” was speaking at the ANC election launch, and therefore deserved live coverage, Smuts said. — Sapa