Proudly South African, the buy local advocacy campaign, distanced itself today from a DA-sponsored advert illegally barring its logo published on Sunday in the Sunday Times newspaper and Twitter during the ANC’s 5th national policy conference.
The advert on the policy conference currently underway at the Nasrec Expo Centre in the south of Johannesburg stated “ANC policy proudly made in Dubai” in reference to state capture allegations involving President Jacob Zuma and his close associates the Gupta family.
In a statement, the Proudly SA campaign said its logo is a registered trade mark and cannot be used without its permission. The organisation said it was a nonprofit organisation and doesn’t represent any political views as it was nonpartisan.
“This was a flagrant misuse of a legally protected trade mark, incorporated into a political advert and designed to mislead the public into thinking that Proudly South African in some way endorses the Democratic Alliance’s stance and views, which is not the case and we cannot let this go lightly without distancing ourselves from this and any other political campaign,” Proudly SA CEO Eustace Mashimbye said.
Proudly SA said it had contacted the DA directly and demanded the official opposition party issue a public apology on all the same platforms on which it published the advert.
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