Government dismisses Advertising Bias
31 January 2013
The Presidency has noted media reports about government media advertising and a subsequent call made by the Leader of the Democratic Alliance, Ms Helen Zille for the establishment of a Judicial Commission of Enquiry to investigate government advertising.
Government undertakes advertising in all mediums across the board which reaches a variety of targeted audiences. The government advertising is spent in newspapers across the country, radio stations, television and digital media. In this regard, there is no basis for accusation of advertising bias towards the New Age newspaper.
In this financial year of 2012/13 government has by end of November 2012 through Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) Media Bulk Buying spent R108 million rand across all platforms, in the process saving government about R17 million of public funds.
The advertising expenditure on group of newspapers for the past two financial years and the current financial year through GCIS was R20 006 080 in 2010/11 and R55 791 902 for 2011/12 and R59 285 664 in the current financial year. This excludes direct advertising by departments, provinces, municipalities and SOE's that do not work through GCIS.