Whistleblowers face retaliation and murder

A failure of the government to recognise the dire situation

- TINA UYS & UGLJESA RADULOVIC

SOUTH Africa's long history of wrongdoing spans from Willem Adriaan van der Stel’s days of running a corrupt trading monopoly to present-day South Africa. Van der Stel was the second Governor of the Cape Dutch Colony, from 1699 to his removal in 1707.

Whistleblowers have been at the core of exposing these instances of corruption. Public whistleblowing was rare under apartheid (1948-1994). But with the transition to democracy, the reporting of wrongdoing increased. This can largely be attributed to a new constitution that caters for all the country’s citizens, and new laws that reinforced their rights.

One such law is the Protected Disclosures Act No. 26 of 2000, amended by way of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Act No. 5 of 2017. The law was designed to protect individuals who expose perceived wrongdoing to an authority that has the capacity to remedy the wrongdoing. Yet, it has offered inadequate protection.

South African whistleblowers have been overwhelmingly subjected to reprisals - from murder to social, work-related, and legal retaliation. Our academic expertise is concerned with exploring the experiences of whistleblowers in South Africa, and making meaning of their plight. In a recently published paper we give an account of the stories of a selection of whistleblowers spanning five decades. We selected a few stories that have set precedents in South Africa. These cases offer only a glimpse into the experiences of South African whistleblowers. But what is clear is that, by fulfilling their public duty, they place themselves at great personal risk.

Adam Klein