Zondo report release prompts potential Athol Williams return – when it’s safe

The release of the Zondo report on Tuesday was “a defining moment in our country’s history”, says the man who left country and family behind in fear of his safety.

“We all talk about what happens next but before we get there, I think there is intrinsic value in the truth,” whistleblower Athol Williams said on Wednesday from England where he fled after lifting the lid on Bain South Africa’s activities.

“We want justice, but proof comes before justice.”

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At its heart, Bain SA is a consulting company which works “with ambitious clients who want to define the future, not hide from it”.

And under its former managing partner Vittoro Massone, it defined SA’s future for many years when it tried to “refresh” the SA Revenue Service (Sars).

Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo noted in his report how Williams told the commission how Bain was contracted to perform consultancy services at Sars, including recommending and implementing a “profound strategy refresh” and complete organisational restructure, to the tune of R167 million, over 27 months.

“For Bain to recommend restructuring, which is usually a last resort, suggests that Sars was completely dysfunctional and needed a complete overhaul of vision, mission and strategic plans and operations,” Zondo said.

“Mr Williams said one would be hard pressed to find any knowledgeable person who could justify the claim that this is what Sars needed.”

READ: First part of state capture report finally available to public

Williams said justice wasn’t the commissions job. “Truth was its job and law enforcement must handle justice. I think for us to get to the point of knowing what happened behind the scenes when we all knew something was very wrong but we could never quite put our fingers on it, right?”

At least, now SA had the first part of the three-part report.

“Sure, it’s one third of the overall report but it puts evidence behind what we’ve known to be true and I thought it was powerful,” Williams said.

He’s been trying to contact his former employees to say to them; “Guys, you can still do the right thing,” but “they’ve never responded”.

He wants to return to SA, when it’s safe. “The reasons I left were two-fold. We were not prosecuting the bad guys and secondly, there was just no protection for me. And there still isn’t,” he said.

“Once we get to the point where we see people prosecuted and there’s protection and support for my wife and I, then of course I want to come back.”

At the official handover of the report, President Cyril Ramaphosa said if whistleblowers like Williams, Mosilo Mothepu, and others had not come forward “often at great risk and cost to themselves”, the commission would never have happened.

“We need to thank them for their courage and service to the country,” he said.

Ramaphosa’s words were cold comfort for Williams. “Some whistleblowers like Mothepu have been going for six years. I’ve been at this for almost two and a half years, of no income, living in fear, of being completely abandoned,” Williams said.

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It was not only government, but corporate South Africa, he said, and with corruption endemic in the country, who would want to hire someone who isn’t afraid of speaking out.

“The University of Cape Town where I was a business ethics lecturer asked me to resign because I was apparently being distracted from teaching when I challenged them on the hiring of McKinsey [management consulting firm],” he noted.

McKinsey earned its own special place in South African history when it partnered with Trillian to win a R1.6bn Eskom contract for a “turnaround programme” which did not end well for the country.

Trillian was run by the Gupta brothers.

– amandaw@citizen.co.za