Government ‘does not provide enough protection’ to whistleblowers

In spite of growing concerns about the safety of whistle-blowers, and the “inaction” from government in response to their protection, experts say a large part of the work of future commissions of enquiry should be prioritising the prevention of harm to whistle-blowers if they want people to continue to report corruption.

Former South African Revenue Service (Sars) executive Johann van Loggerenberg said the inaction of not only Sars, but law enforcement agencies, based on the documentary evidence of Athol Williams, was very concerning.

Williams exposed alleged corruption at management consultancy Bain & Company where he was working and subsequently left the country.

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“At the moment it appears as if they [the authorities] are paying lip service to whistle-blowers, but I will say Sars should answer for themselves, we should question their silence,” Van Loggerenberg said.

Amnesty International South Africa executive director Shenilla Mohamed said it was unacceptable that whistle-blowers, who were risking their lives in order to protect people and combat corruption, were treated with such “disdain”.

“We have already seen how brave people like Babita Deokaran were murdered for doing the right thing because they were not properly protected.

“The state is obliged to provide whistle-blowers with protection,” Mohamed said in a statement.

“Whistle-blowers are critical to any democracy because they are a warning sign that lets us know as society, as authorities, that something is going wrong.”

She said without whistle-blowers, evidence of large-scale human rights violations would never surface.

According to Van Loggerenberg, Williams’ testimony dated back to before the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, as he had also helped the Nugent Commission of Inquiry.

“I’m not interested in the verbal testimony, I’m interested in the documentary evidence that he disclosed. The Nugent commission recommended that Bain & Company should be prosecuted or the matter be referred to the prosecuting authority,” he said.

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“So Sars must explain what happened to all that evidence, we can’t say please people blow the whistle and when they do this, we leave them on their own.”

But Sars spokesperson Siphithi Sibeko said the revenue service was not aware of any documentary evidence. University of Cape Town’s Olwethu Majola said commissions of enquiry must be empowered to investigate a variety of whistle-blower protection strategies.

“Such strategies may include maintaining levels of confidentiality, concealing identities and offering police protection.”

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za