Exposing more secrets

Speaking about her book, The Whistleblowers, in an interview with Pan Macmillan, Mandy says that the idea originated from an interview with a whistleblower for a book she wanted to write which never materialised. “It made me really consider what happens to whistleblowers in South Africa and their plight … the value that we don’t give to whistleblowers, and I just thought that it was so important to shine a light on the issue in South Africa.”

Instead of writing a book about one whistleblower she set about meeting with them, listening to their stories and asking them to be interviewed. The result is a cross-section of people in South Africa, those who have chosen to speak truth to power, risking everything in the interests of truth and of justice in South Africa.

Mandy explains there were no clear criteria for her subjects. The people she writes about aren’t the noblest or those with the most integrity, but those whose stories she found most compelling. “I also wanted to display a cross-section of experiences. In some instances, people have been able to leverage their roles as whistleblowers and make a career out of it.”

For some people, the results of their whistleblowing have been absolutely catastrophic. “They’ve been left devastated, unemployed, broken and really paying the price. Financially sometimes the results are great, and we see money being paid back to the fiscus or we see people being held to account and going to jail, but in the majority of cases unfortunately the results are dire, so one of the reasons that I wanted to write this book was because I really wanted to advocate for some kind of cultural change and legislative change as well.”

In the USA and the UK, whistleblowers are often placed on a pedestal and they are celebrated. There are books written about them, and movies made about them, but in South Africa, Mandy says, there are very different consequences for
a whistleblower. “I want people to appreciate what our whistleblowers go through, what they sacrifice so that they’re treated differently in society. We need to place them on a pedestal and celebrate them and they should be treated as heroes. They should be given national orders. We should really applaud them and appreciate them and laud them and we don’t.”

The Protected Disclosures Act (PDA) protects whistleblowers in South Africa, but Mandy says every single whistleblower she had interviewed said that they had been let down by the PDA, that they had been completely failed, that it was not practical, that it didn’t work in application. “And that’s one of the things that I’d like to advocate for as well. It’s not just a societal and a cultural change, but also a legislative change.”

“We need better laws to protect whistleblowers and some of them have made suggestions in the book as well where they have suggested something like a Chapter 9 organisation that would facilitate whistleblowing.

Unfortunately, corruption is a very topical issue right now and we’ve seen that with PPE procurement and Covid‘preneurs’ – how they are just feeding at the trough of government funding …

It’s important that whistleblowers expose what really goes on in South Africa. We wouldn’t know about the Gupta Leaks if it wasn’t for a whistleblower. We would never have known the extent of state capture at parastatals and state-owned enterprises if it wasn’t for the brave insiders who chose to speak up and tell the public and take us into their confidence.”

The Protected Disclosures Act 26 of 2000 intends:

• to make provision for procedures in terms of which employees in both the private and the public sector may disclose information regarding unlawful or irregular conduct by their employers or other employees in the employ of their employers;
• to provide for the protection of employees who make a disclosure which is protected in terms of this Act; and
• to provide for matters connected therewith.

To read the full Act visit www.gov.za