After Steward bank raided business publication, The Source last week armed with a court order, journalists from different publications took it upon themselves to defend what they felt was media freedom under threat.

In the eyes of the media and government, Steward Bank’s actions were tantamount to an attack on media freedom but through their lawyer Tawanda Nyambirai, the bank sought to clarify that media freedom is not absolute and ought to be balanced with competing rights of individuals.

Inevitably the altercation sucked in Econet who are the majority shareholder in Steward Bank. Many felt Econet had become a bully who was now a threat to the liberty of citizens.

The manner in which this whole thing unravelled presented three important issues that need attention. Firstly the state of access to information in Zimbabwe, secondly the state of ethics in the media sector, thirdly the cyber security of citizens in the country.

The Source is alleged to have had secured documents that showed that Steward Bank had given $30 million dollars to government and Mr Tawanda Nyambirai had helped to broker this deal and benefited financially from it. Secondly it would expose what Mr Phillip Chiyangwa owes the bank and the proposal to settle this debt through exchange of land.

Steward Bank misses the important point that any money loaned to government ought to be public knowledge. Banks cannot expect to enter into secret financial arrangements with the government and expect the media to fold their arms. Tax payers are the ones that pay back these loans and they have a right to know what deals Steward, Nyambirai or anyone else enters with the government.

It is therefore suspicious whether in this situation Tawanda Nyambirai and Steward are acting in the interest of their client as they are purporting or protecting their own private interests. Either way the media has a right to expose these dealings whether Mr Nyambirai likes it or not.

The matter is slightly different when it comes to Phillip Chiyangwa who is a private citizen but in the interest of investigative journalism that can expose potential corruption the media must be allowed to poke its nose where it suspects corruption may be going on. Here I do not suggest that Phillip Chiyangwa is corrupt but it is the role of the media to investigate and inform the public.

The Source therefore acted well by seeking to expose the dealings of the state and private institutions and persons that it perceived to be of public interest or whose dealings could potentially affect the public..

Steward Bank’s actions sought to undermine the media-source relationship by ransacking computers of journalists. These actions seriously jeopardised the safety of the whistleblower who supplied this information to the media. It was an affront to investigative journalism and hence an attack on our democracy.

Whistleblowers are pivotal in the fight against corruption and media ethics dictate that they be protected. The actions of the bank seriously put into question the safety of the ‘mole’ who rightly leaked this information to the media.

Lastly, it was self evident that the ‘cyber’ security of journalists and indeed other private citizens is far from secure in this country. Newsrooms need to invest more in cyber security.

What was done by Steward bank in the Source newsroom could easily happen to any other journalists. I have written about this in the past when state security agents forcibly took away phones and cameras at the airport when President Mugabe fell.

The country is also operating without a Cyber crime law which makes cases like the steward bank-source case difficult to deal with. Steward bank is a legitimate victim of cyber crime after information was illegally removed from its servers by an unknown person.

Citizens are in real risk of being victims of cyber crime. Government has not acted fast to put a law that protects citizens.

This is not to say its reaction was justified. Swiss bank had information about its clients published by the media a few months ago but did not react in the same manner that Steward Bank did.

Steward bank must respect the role of media as the watchdog of society. The media has a duty to report on issues that are of public interest. Instead the bank must vent its anger against the government which is stalling in crafting a cyber security law.

Ends