Most Gauteng newspapers have condemned the withdrawal of First National Bank’s (FNB) multimillion-rand anti-crime campaign as a cowardly act.
They also accused the government and big business of using bullying tactics in the matter.
FNB’s R20-million campaign involved print, television and radio advertisements and invited members of the public to write to President Thabo Mbeki about their experiences of crime. The bank withdrew its initiative on Friday after meeting with government and the security cluster, but said it would go ahead with it at a later date.
Beeld, the Citizen, Business Day and the Sowetan (on Monday) said government had bullied FNB into withdrawing its campaign and that FNB bad bowed to the pressure.
Beeld said it was unfortunate that FNB had withdrawn its campaign because of pressure from the government and big business. It said that postage-paid letters to Mbeki by South Africans could have been ”highly illuminating”.
It added that even though the government had pressured FNB to withdraw its campaign, it would not change people’s mind about the high levels of crime in South Africa.
Business Day said that while it was expected that the government would want to persuade FNB to drop its campaign targeting Mbeki directly — which government was rightly allowed to do — its pressure amounted to intimidation by using the ”big guns from the Presidency and government’s security cluster to lean on FNB”.
The newspaper said it was ”simply unacceptable” for an official spokesperson to condemn the campaign as ”incitement” against Mbeki.
Meanwhile, it also said FNB was mostly to blame for the ”heat” it was receiving because it misjudged government’s response to the campaign.
”To launch a high-profile campaign targeting Mbeki directly, without having a plan in place to pre-empt the inevitable political fallout, was unforgivably naive, especially since government is a big FNB client.”
The Citizen said the government had acted as ”paranoid bullies” and big business as ”cowards”.
”Big business appears divided and cowardly, while government emerges as a bully with paranoid tendencies.”
It said it was unlikely that FNB was driven by an anti-government motive and that sending the president a message, noting concern about crime, was more an expression of the national mood than an act of treason.
The Citizen said Mbeki and his government did not want to be challenged, ”and they will go to great lengths to ensure their version of the truth prevails”.
It added that through the ”debacle”, where both government and big business had cowed, they had created an impression of conspiring against ordinary citizens.
The Star said an awareness campaign would not have worked and that citizens needed to become involved in fighting crime.
”Campaigns such as these are mounted with the best will in the world, but they do not always shine with wisdom.”
It said the campaign would simply have told the president something he already knew.
”This struggle will not be fought within the confines of Mbeki’s office and no amount of letters will make it go away,” the Star said.
The Star commented on FNB’s chief executive Paul Harris, saying that more than 420 000 South Africans had become victims of crime last year.
”And he’s calling on one man to do something about it. But what if all of us did something about crime?”
The Sowetan on Monday said the government was trying to muzzle individuals and institutions from expressing their views on crime because it had become ”ultra-sensitive to criticisms over its handling of crime”. — Sapa