Outside the Standard Bank Cape Town Business Centre. Picture: Ayanda Ndamane/African News Agency (ANA)
Cape Town - Standard Bank (SBSA) has yet to comment on the potential impact on media freedom and the job security of 1 600 media workers after announcing its intention to close the bank accounts of Independent Media and 30 other companies in Sekunjalo Group.
The bank has been under pressure to respond, amid a groundswell of public concern from journalists, civil society, political parties and media workers’ unions over what has been called the “weaponisation” of financial institutions.
SBSA’s legal team had issued letters to Sekunjalo on July 21, giving its companies a 30-day notice period before the closure of its accounts.
The move comes after the Competition Appeals Court ruled last week that the Competition Tribunal had in September 2022 erred in ordering SBSA, Mercantile Bank and Access Bank to either reopen or not close Sekunjalo’s accounts.
Repeated attempts by Independent Media to engage with SBSA on the matter have failed; this as employees at major media outlets like Cape Argus, Cape Times and IOL, whose salaries are paid via Independent Media’s Standard Bank accounts, hold their breath.
Earlier this week, Cape Argus sent SBSA a query asking:
1) Has SBSA considered the impact of the closure of the accounts on the estimated 1 600 media workers employed by Sekunjalo-owned companies, and the livelihoods of their dependants?
2) Has SBSA considered the impact on media freedom, by putting South Africa’s largest newspaper company at risk?
3) SBSA has cited reputational risk as the basis for its decision to close the companies’ accounts. The reputational risk issue emanated from the Mpati Commission of Inquiry into the Public Investment Corporation (PIC).
Sekunjalo (its subsidiary AYO) was subsequently vindicated following a Western Cape High Court settlement between AYO and the PIC.
Is the reputational risk argument thus still valid? If not, what is the decision to close the accounts based on?
In response, SBSA evaded the matter and instead rehashed a previous statement it had issued last week, reading: “Standard Bank is pleased with the judgment which confirms Standard Bank’s position, since inception, that we have not been involved in any anti-competitive behaviour, as alleged.
The statement added: “Following the favourable judgment, Standard Bank is engaging with the Sekunjalo Group on the next steps.”
However, no further communication from SBSA has been forthcoming.
Meanwhile, public outrage has been building, with EFF leader Julius Malema saying on Wednesday: “Banks are being weaponised. We are all suffering. We are being bullied by banks in South Africa. It is just a matter of time before we act against this injustice. One of these days, we will mobilise and find a way to deal with this.”
The Public Service and Commercial Union (PSCU) condemned SBSA’s insistence in closing bank accounts, and called the collateral damage this will have on hundreds of employees and their dependents “evil”.
PSCU Secretary-General Tahir Maepa said: “This ill-considered approach shows how diabolical Standard Bank is towards workers and their families, some who happen to be their client.
“The impunity by Standard Bank has created a monster where banks are clearly now acting above the law, practising discrimination in broad daylight against the working class.”
The Information Communication Technology Union said Standard Bank’s actions were an “attack on media as a whole and South African citizens by eliminating diversified views on matters of national interest and media freedom”.
The union said in a statement yesterday: “We call on Standard Bank to reverse its decision of closing Independent Media’s bank accounts which are being used to pay the employees of Independent Media, lest they become enemies of the working class.”