JOHANNESBURG – The Department of Social Development paid the SABC R500,000 to interview minister Batahabile Dlamini, according to the Daily Maverick news website.

It says that a two-hour “hagiographic” profile of Dlamini, rebroadcast in December on SABC3, was paid for with public funds.

Dlamini’s spokesman Lumka Oliphant reportedly defended the payment as routine marketing and advertising in media that is bought by the government.

To date, the Social Development Department had transferred more than R5-million to the SABC for this purpose, the website quoted Oliphant as saying.

READ: Bathabile Dlamini tells ANC men to look in the mirror

Daily Maverick describes the Dlamini interview as “an unmitigated attempt at humanising and white-washing Dlamini” in the middle of “a bruising and deeply factional elective ANC conference. It is common knowledge that Dlamini and the ANC Women’s League supported Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma as a preferred candidate.

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago told Daily Maverick the matter was  “confidential and we will not discuss it”.

Kaizer Kganyago’s response is pure nonsense. There is nothing commercially sensitive here. The SABC cannot give paid-for airtime for fluff pieces for politicians without informing the public that what they are watching is, in essence, an advertisement. https://t.co/cFWoeDR7jV

— Phumzile Van Damme (@zilevandamme) January 17, 2018

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