Whistleblower and former ANC Youth League Harry Gwala region secretary Thabiso Zulu testifies at the Moerane Commission. Zulu is a corruption fighter who has fought for justice for many years, says the writer. – Picture: Sibonelo Ngcobo / Independent Newspapers
By Mary de Haas
Dealing constructively with corruption may be the biggest challenge facing the Government of National Unity (GNU).
Those fighting it risk death, as in the recent attempted murder of senior SARS advocate Coreth Naudé after her unsuccessful attempt to implement an attachment order against alleged tax fraudsters.
Anti-corruption legislation demands that if people know about it, they must report it, but like Babita Deokaran, who uncovered massive Health Department fraud, they may be signing their death warrants.
Those orchestrating these killings are seldom unmasked. Whistle-blowers are at the coalface of this struggle, but many lose either their livelihoods or their lives because, despite much government rhetoric, no concrete action has been taken to protect and compensate them.
Blowing the whistle is done for various reasons, including by those who realise their criminality is being exposed. The most vulnerable are people driven by their integrity, ethics and commitment to justice who face the loss of jobs or lives.
Few killers are exposed because corruption flourishes in the criminal justice system mandated to deal with it. The SAPS is riddled with corruption and nepotism, and good police members suffer for it.
After an SABC exposé of serious, health-threatening victimisation of SAPS members in the Free State, those suspected of leaking information were illegally dismissed, some even faced malicious criminal charges – a common practice.
Expeditious disciplinary procedures are regularly used to deal with members the SAPS management wants to dismiss and, because the police bargaining council is overburdened with complaints, and management deliberately delays cases, illegally dismissed members run out of money to keep fighting – while management uses taxpayers’ money to defeat the ends of justice.
Long-serving senior Free State SAPS administrator Patricia Mashale has survived more than one attempted assassination. At the request of then-National Commissioner Khehla Sitole, she sent him a dossier on alleged corruption in the Free State management. She had always reported corruption and sometimes action had been taken.
However, Sitole sent the dossier back to those she had reported, and the persecution started, including the following of her car, the illegal seizure of her personal cellphone and threats of disciplinary action.
Following credible reports that she was to be arrested and would then disappear, she went into hiding two-and-a-half years ago, away from her family, as their home was – and still is – under surveillance.
One attempt to kill her happened when her son-in-law’s car was followed by a black Ford Ranger from the family home, where she had attended to her sick minor son. A high-speed chase through Bloemfontein in the middle of the night ensued until they finally lost their pursuers and spent the night in the car until daylight.
She had been irregularly dismissed from work, and a case of breaching a harassment order was opened by one of those she had reported. Because the court record was deliberately interfered with, an arrest warrant was issued for her, together with an international “Red Alert” (unlike for convicted murderer and rapist Thabo Bester).
Intelligence operatives were sent to Bloemfontein to track her down. She and her children, including a minor son, have endured two-and-a-half years of hell and breach of all fundamental rights, including a mixture of house arrest and solitary confinement. Had Whistle-blower House not funded a good lawyer for her, she would probably be dead by now.
The alleged breach of the court order case has dragged on, and she has to be extra careful when attending court, as whistle-blowers have been killed doing so. There is evidence of collusion between certain SAPS management members and some prosecutors in the Free State.
This cruel, inhumane treatment of Mashale, worthy of the apartheid state, is being carried out by a government that swears to uphold the Constitution. Corruption-fighter Thabiso Zulu has fought for justice for many years, especially for his late friend Sindiso Magaqa, who died after being shot in 2017 following his exposure of gross politically linked corruption in Umzimkhulu.
Zulu spends much of his time in hiding. He has survived more than one attempt on his life, including when a bullet narrowly missed his heart. He has evidence of alleged police complicity, and he has also been abused and maliciously arrested, and had his phones illegally seized – by police members.
Despite the then public protector instructing Minister Cele to provide Zulu with protection of his choice, and a personal assurance from President Ramaphosa that he would receive it, the latter was overruled by Cele.
With organs of state mandated to protect and administer justice impartially to citizens being given carte blanche to persecute whistleblowers, the outgoing government demonstrated its complete lack of concern about corruption and human lives.
The conduct of the new GNU will be closely monitored, starting with how it deals with the most serious corruption of all, that which is embedded in our criminal justice system.
For detailed reports on the Patricia Mashale and Thabiso Zulu cases, see www.violencemonitor.com
* Mary de Haas is a violence monitor in KZN, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of KZN’s School of Law, and a member of the Navi Pillay Research Group on Justice and Human Rights
** The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of The African