ANC’s MTN boycott not called for
The African National Congress (ANC) has not called on its members to boycott MTN, the spokesperson for the party, Jackson Mthembu has told MyBroadband.
Mthembu said he could only speak for the ANC, however, and not the ANC Youth League, or the ANC Veterans League.
This follows a strongly-worded statement issued today (4 June 2013) in which the Democratic Alliance (DA) accused the ANC of using “bully-boy” tactics against mobile network operator MTN due to an advertising campaign the DA is running on MTN recharge vouchers.
A member of the DA in the office of the national spokesperson explained that they issued the statement due to an article in today’s Sowetan entitled “DA and ANC in airtime war” on the Sowetan Live website, and “DA goes mobile to reach voters” in the Sowetan print edition.
The article quoted ANC West Rand region chairman Mpho Nawa as saying that the ANC has to “engage its members not to support MTN” for supporting the DA.
According to the DA, they entered into a standard advertising agreement with MTN for the campaign. “It should be pointed out that this form of advertising is not only used on MTN airtime vouchers, but across the top three South African cellular networks,” the DA said.
The campaign reportedly involves the DA logo being printed on MTN airtime voucher slips along with information on how the DA was involved in the liberation of South Africa.
“The ANC’s call to boycott MTN is a clear sign that it is panicking about the DA’s growing support,” the DA statement said. “No amount of threats and intimidation will change the fact that more and more South Africans are choosing the DA over the ANC.”
Update from MTN distancing themselves from the advertising campaign:
Mobile network operator MTN South Africa has emphasised that it is not involved in the sale of advertising space on airtime vouchers as part of Democratic Alliance “Know Your DA” campaign.
“MTN is not involved in the printing of vouchers, after investigating we have been informed by Blue Label telecoms our distributor, that DA is a client of their subsidiary, Blue Label Media,” says Robert Madzonga, Chief Corporate Service Officer at MTN South Africa.
“Vouchers are the sole responsibility of a distributor, in this case Blue Label Telecoms, which is responsible for printing and distributing the airtime vouchers. As a distributor, Blue Label is at liberty to sell advertising space on all the airtime vouchers it is responsible for, not just MTN’s.
This means the content displayed on the vouchers does not get to be sanctioned by MTN before publication,” he continued.
MTN South Africa was made aware of the advertisements by the media.
“As MTN, we have not sanctioned nor endorsed this type of advertisement. MTN strives to steer away from religious and political advertisements,” adds Madzonga.
Blue Label Telecoms MD, Brett Levy says “We apologise for creating any misperceptions about MTN’s involvement in this campaign. The vouchers were printed across various network vouchers and not specific to a network voucher. We have since stopped the advertising with immediate effect.”
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