The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has officially withdrawn all radio advertisements of the Tshwane Metropolitan Council that refer to Tshwane as the capital city.
According to lobby group Afriforum, led by Kallie Kriel, this decision followed a complaint having been lodged by AfriForum — the civil rights initiative established by trade union Solidarity — against such advertisements with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Kriel said the complaint was in response to advertising of the Tshwane Metropolitan Council in six languages on several SABC radio stations in which Tshwane is called “Africa’s leading capital” — in spite of several rulings by the ASA in favour of AfriForum that the slogan was misleading as the name of the capital was Pretoria.
The SABC’s policy manager, Fakir Hassin, undertook in writing to the ASA to withdraw the advertisements with “immediate effect” and to inform the staff of the SABC not to air any such advertisements in future.
The SABC’s use of advertisements referring to Tshwane as the capital after the ASA’s ruling against this, according to Hassin, was the result of a misunderstanding.
The use since 2000 of the name Pretoria for the city and Tshwane for the municipality, according to Kriel, was a “win-win” solution for the diverse opinions about the name of this area.
Kriel expressed the hope that the metro council and government would take note of the SABC’s latest decision and desist from the efforts to derail the existing compromise. ‒ I-Net Bridge