South African expats protesting outside Bell Pottinger offices in London.

Home » South Africans Succeed in Getting Bell Pottinger Expelled From UK PR Body

South Africans Succeed in Getting Bell Pottinger Expelled From UK PR Body

Thanks in part to a tireless effort from the Democratic Alliance (DA), as well as the persistence of vocal South Africans, an unrelenting SA Twitter vs Bell Pottinger, and protesting expats in London… PR firm Bell Pottinger has been expelled, with immediate effect, from UK PR regulatory body, the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA). Only […]

By SAPeople
05-09-17 13:04
in News
South African expats protesting outside Bell Pottinger offices in London.

Thanks in part to a tireless effort from the Democratic Alliance (DA), as well as the persistence of vocal South Africans, an unrelenting SA Twitter vs Bell Pottinger, and protesting expats in London… PR firm Bell Pottinger has been expelled, with immediate effect, from UK PR regulatory body, the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA).

South African expats protesting outside Bell Pottinger offices in London.

Only one other company has ever been expelled from Europe’s largest PR body in over a decade.

Today the DA, which had laid the complaint against Bell Pottinger, thanked “the people of South Africa for making it loud and clear that unethical conduct by private companies in aid of corrupt individuals will not be tolerated”.

The PRCA Board of Management unanimously concluded that Bell Pottinger breached Clauses 1.1 and 4 of the PRCA Professional Charter and Clauses 12 and 13 of the PRCA Public Affairs and Lobbying Code.

It was found that Bell Pottinger bosses did not exercise “extreme care” during the campaign, and that it failed “to maintain and protect its own reputation” and “the standing of the profession as a whole”.

The investigation followed the DA’s complaint that Bell Pottinger exploited racial tensions in South Africa on behalf of the Gupta family, and Duduzane Zuma, President Jacob Zuma’s son (with a campaign that included the hashtag ‘White Monopoly Capital’).

On Monday DA Shadow Minister of Communications, Phumzile Van Damme, welcomed the news and said this “sanction is the most serious penalty a firm can face and is of significant reputational damage for the embattled spin doctors”.

Whilst the PR company can continue to work, it will be without the honour of belonging to Europe’s most influential PR body, and their credibility has taken a major knock.

Van Damme said: “It will take our country years to rebuild our severely fragile race relations, which Bell Pottinger, the Guptas and the Zumas sought to exploit for their own financial gains.”

She also insisted that Bell Pottinger must still “disclose all information regarding their Oakbay Capital account and reinvest all monies from their Oakbay account back into South Africa”.

While some South Africans on Twitter celebrated the SA unity which led to the investigation – “We did it fellow South Africans, we got #BellPottinger kicked out of UK PR body. We did it because we united even more than fell apart” – others, like Ryan Cummings said: “Now that we dealt with #BellPottinger can we also move on to rainbowists preaching unity at the expense of addressing racialised inequality.”

Former Public Protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela, who revealed the close relationship between President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta Family in her State Capture Report, said: “Consequences of racially divisive diversion campaign are dire for #BellPottinger. What should be the consequences for those that hired them?”