the congress of the people cannot support this budget vote because we cannot support the use of public funds for government propaganda by doing so we are aligning ourselves with the struggle to defend the values and spirit of a free and open constitutional democracy the government communication information systems gcis has a fundamental duty to manage communication and the flow of information on government service delivery that affect the lives of our people in a responsible nonpartisan manner what the country needs is open and transparent government communication telling the good news the not so good news and yes also the really bad news and how government will correct what went wrong in a constitutional democracy a free and independent media is an indisputable key stakeholder and partner in that process however under the leadership of the new director general of this department this partnership has been contaminated in particularly lately when mister manyi dangled a one billion rand advertising budget in front of journalists informing them that their newspapers could share in the advertising budget that we vote for today