n a recent opinion piece by Claire Keeton, “How to fix a fearful, new world riven by polycrisis” (6 March, TimesLive), she quotes Mark Swilling, co-director of the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University: “We need to maximise what we can do to solve our own problems and minimise our dependence on the state.”
Middle class citizens with means are doing that in sinking boreholes, installing solar panels and so forth. But, if they have to take the law into their own hands to deal with crime and violence, the state will have effectively abdicated its responsibility as custodian of our constitutional democracy. The litmus test of whether the governing party understands that is the extent to which it commits to protecting and encouraging whistleblowers.
It has been two and a half years since I started working with whistleblowers. The entry threshold was the launch of Mandy Weiner’s book The Whistleblowers in October 2020. To promote the book I asked a journalist friend, Joanne Joseph, to anchor a panel discussion, Springing the Trap: Developing a Culture of Whistleblowing.
During the discussion, Mandy said: “We have to stack the cards in favour of whistleblowers if we are to fight corruption.”
“This is a life you would not want to wish for your worst enemies,” said Thabiso Zulu who, having survived an assassination attempt, never stays at one place for too long lest the thugs contracted by politicians finish him off for blowing the whistle on corruption...
The Dangote Group has dismissed as false and malicious claims of a rift between its President, Aliko Dangote, and the Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Tony Elumelu, and also rejected allegations that h...