Date: 17 June, 2009

Source: Democratic Alliance

Title: DA: Mazibuko: Speech by the DA deputy shadow minister of communications on the GCIS budget vote

The Democratic Alliance supports broadly the work of GCIS, which exists to ensure that the citizens of this country are afforded access to information about the extent to which the government of the day has been effective in implementing its delivery mandate.

The question of extent however, is the key. Our people need to be informed about the good news and the challenges which the government faces, and we should not allow situations to arise wherein we as a Parliament of the people allocate funds to the Department, so that it can spend them on loving advertorials and paid-for broadcasting of government successes, whilst neglecting information about the challenges government faces, and how they will be addressed, and whilst information for citizens about how to access govt services are given second-billing.

GCIS is in the unfortunate position where it becomes possible for the government of the day to conflate the issues of party versus state with regard to its mandate - particularly when it comes to informing the public about policy and programme implementation.

This can very easily deteriorate into a situation wherein a state department is then roped in to market the ANC at the expense of the South African taxpayer. This is a tension which was brought into stark relief during our recent General Election, when the Democratic Alliance raised concerns about what appeared to be a spike in expensive state advertising campaigns which highlighted the successes of the ANC government, and thus afforded the governing party the opportunity to deepen its already expansive election campaign pockets.

So we support the Department's resolve, as highlighted in the CEO's presentation to this portfolio committee, to "make a difference in the lives of the people by providing information on programmes that will develop and strengthen partnerships to build the country and alleviate poverty". For the same reasons, we also support initiatives such as the goal of having Thusong Services Centres in every municipality by 2014 in order to broaden access to government information and services to communities throughout South Africa, as well as the Department's commitment to addressing some of the challenges facing this programme. However, it remains of deep concern to the DA that this department does not become a state-funded mouthpiece for the African National Congress.

This raises questions around the Department's stated commitment in the medium-term strategic plan to "strengthening unmediated communication". Hon. Kilian rightly made the point that the need for GCIS to advertise - particularly in the broadcast media - is tenuous given that it is advertising a service for which it has no competitors, and indeed Mr Maseko has indicated that media briefings are often enough to convey government messages.

Similarly, we welcome GCIS's commitment to improved interaction with the free media in order to ensure that the press has access to the executive - this is a healthy approach to the government's relationship with the fourth estate. But the emphasis on the need to use this interaction to "ensure proper media coverage" brings to mind decidedly unhealthy images of the recent fiasco in which news editors and journalists from the public broadcaster where summoned by the governing party to account for their portrayal of the then-presidential candidate, Mr Jacob Zuma. We sincerely hope that this is not the spirit in which GCIS plans to engage with the media.

Broadly, we would hope that GCIS will, in the implementation of its mandate, ensure that a critical balance is struck to prevent the dissemination of government information from becoming the dissemination of party propaganda.

Thank you.