South Africans need to be mindful of biases that emerge through the media, especially when it relates to issues of service delivery. This is the reminder from the head of the Stellenbosch Business School Social Impact, Dr Armand Bam.

He was referring to the disparity in the coverage and public outrage between the DA’s handling of the VAT hike, and the DA-led City of Cape Town’s anti-poor municipal budget.

He says that on the one hand, the ANC was demonised for proposing a VAT hike, while the DA did not receive the same kind outrage over the City of Cape Town’s budget.

He referred to this disparity as the ‘Clean Hands Fallacy’, which allows groups or political parties with good reputations of governance to go untarnished even when they are committing the same actions as those with more tainted reputations.