Muthambi must confirm or deny reports of advertising blackmail

12 December 2014

Reports today that the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) is to withhold advertising from newspapers that do not toe the ANC line need to be refuted by Minister Muthambi immediately.

If she does not, she will confirm - once and for all - that her new department is the ‘Ministry of Propaganda' we have been warning about.

It is reported that the ANC is targeting three newspapers - the Mail & Guardian, Sunday Times and City Press - that it believes is engaged in "an anti-ANC and anti-government onslaught" (see M&G article). 

The plan to withhold government advertising from these newspapers was confirmed by the head of the ANC's communications subcommittee, Lindiwe Zulu, who said: "How do you continue to pay people who insult you? What's that? Something needs to give."

This is political blackmail, pure and simple. 

As ever, Luthuli House finds it impossible to distinguish between party and state. It is time the ANC understood that using public money for party political propaganda is an abuse of power.

The job of GCIS is to inform and educate citizens of their rights and the government services available to them, not to push the message of the political party in power. 

This is not the first time that government has attempted to blackmail newspapers into reporting favourably on the ANC and its performance in government. In 2011, then government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi put exactly the same proposal on the table.

It is no co-incidence that this proposal has re-emerged just a few weeks after Manyi was re-deployed as a Special Advisor in Minister Muthambi's office.

Since coming to office just seven months ago, Minister Muthambi has laid the groundwork to turn the state communication apparatus into a party-political propaganda machine. Besides the latest proposal to blackmail independently-minded newspapers, she has:

1. Protected and promoted Zuma-loyalist Hlaudi Motsoeneng at the SABC when he should have been fired following the Public Protector's report.

2. Announced plans to transfer Parliament's power to recommend SABC Board Members to herself.

3. Interfered in the independent broadcast regulator ICASA by unlawfully terminating council members' contracts.

4. Established a state communications Task Team stacked with Zuma loyalists such as Jimmy Manyi, Vusi Mona and Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

If government is planning to withhold advertising from newspapers on the basis of their reportage, Minister Muthambi must come out and defend the policy. This is an ideal opportunity for her to put what she learned on her media skills training course to the test. 

Statement issued by Gavin Davis MP, DA Shadow Minister of Communication, December 12 2014

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