Tina Van Der Merwe
The Sekunjalo battle with the Mafia banks in South Africa sends a clear message to all businesses in South Africa, especially black-owned businesses, that if any of these banks want you to fall, it would be as easy as surfing the internet for faulty media reports. Why? “because if it's in the media it must be true”. These are the very banks we rely on to inject and invest our hard earnings every month.
The South African banks seem to rely a lot on media for most of their decision making. By the looks of it, it seems like these Mafia banks’ obsession has led them to create a special department that monitors all media reports against the Sekunjalo Group and its chairman Dr Iqbal Survé.
What started with a single questionable article, in March 2018, gave rise to a Commission of Inquiry in October of the same year, which was presented as relating to the Public Investment Corporation and its alleged irregularities, was in fact heavily focused on anything related to Sekunjalo.
No formal allegations, no court proceedings, and no investigations that may have been instituted by the banks, along with several explorations and deep dives by the JSE and Financial Sector Conduct Authority, have elicited a single shred of proof of any illegal activity.
Imagine working at a company for years, a company you invested in and invested in your career growth and, within the blink of an eye, you watch how your country’s financial institutions, such as the banks, destroy it – based on inaccurate media reports – instead of performing their own investigations, objective analysis and analysing the data. They are being careless with people’s lives and are doing so with no remorse.
This can simply be described as an abuse of power.
For instance, if a thief wants to steal from you or break into your home, they don’t care whether you are a good person or not, they will take what they came for – even if it means hurting you to get want they want. In this case, the banks are the thieves, carelessly robbing 8 000 people of their jobs.
Why aren’t we putting the Mafia banks on the stand? Are we paying these extreme fees for them to turn around and control our financial position and status?
Just a heads up that if you are implicated or a victim of false or unproven media reporting, it could lead to the result of your bank account being closed. Don’t bother defending yourself because these Mafia banks can’t care whether it’s true or false. The next thing you know, your bank accounts are closed without a fair opportunity to prove otherwise.
We are living in a world where the media is a good place to make unproven accusations and for social media bots, as well as humans, to spread the news. Once it’s out there on the internet, it’s there to stay and, try what you may, it won’t go away.
As a media source, I'm unsure that these channels are also monitored, some of the stories being aired in mainstream media might later be seen as fake news and, by then, it will be too late.
The internet monitors behaviour patterns and everyone is monitoring everyone, and apparently so are the banks. Instead of monitoring and guarding our money, they are monitoring the internet and the media.