The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday accused the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) of censorship and threatened to report it to the communications regulator over delays in airing the party’s advertisements, but the broadcaster countered that the issue had been resolved and termed the complaint an election campaign stunt.

DA MP and communications spokesperson Phumzile van Damme said the party had for a week been involved in talks with the SABC after it refused to air the DA’s political advertisements and rejected the broadcaster’s stated reason for this, namely that it was waiting for a list of parties registered for the August 3 municipal polls.

Van Damme accused the SABC of conflating free one-minute slots on SABC stations, which are known as Party Election Broadcasts or PEBs, and Political Advertisements (PAs), for which parties pay commercial rates and broadcast on any and all stations.

“These are blatant lies. These are paid advertisements, and there is no need for allocation of slots. This is pure nonsense,” Van Damme said.

She added that the DA was surprised to hear SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyakgo claim that the party needed to change its advertisements.

“This is news to us. There is absolutely nothing wrong with our adverts. This smacks of deliberate censorship.

“We see this for what it is – a smokescreen to continue to delay them being aired for even longer,” Van Damme said, adding that the broadcaster was trying to secure an unfair advantage for the African National Congress (ANC).

But Kganyakgo insisted that the SABC needed to wait to receive a list of parties contesting the elections from the Independent Electoral Commission of SA (IEC), which he said it did on Monday.

“We can start now,” he told the African News Agency (ANA). “We had been delayed because we need to follow the due process.”

The particular requirement applied to paid Political Advertisements as well, he said, adding that it was spurious to suggest that the broadcaster would delay revenue generating advertising as “we need the money”.

“I don’t want to turn this into a DA issue but it was a stunt.”

Asked when the SABC would begin screening the party’s advertisements, he said he could not say as this was determined by a separate division in the organisation. As a rule, he added, five days needed to lapse after the advertisement was received by the broadcaster to give it time to make sure that its content was in order.

The advertisement in question makes the claim that the poor receive better service delivery in areas governed by the DA.