Babita Deokaran was a guardian of public accountability — her assassination is a descent into the abyss of chaos

A brave woman was laid to rest in Phoenix, KwaZulu-Natal, shot 12 times because of her honesty in uncovering corruption.

The brutal and tragic killing of Babita Deokaran is an act of savagery that must be condemned by the nation and its law-abiding citizens. If the government does not protect whistle-blowers and their identities, murderous assaults like these will become common.

Our march against corruption stumbles on flawed law execution. The NPA needs to extend every possible protection to whistle-blowers as theirs is an altruistic act. The protection of whistle-blowers is a necessary element of a coherent strategy to combat corruption, which includes other measures to create an ethical culture in the public and financial sectors.

Babita Deokaran was a guardian of public accountability. Sadly, she paid the ultimate price for attempting to expose rampant corruption. An extremely brave soul who unearthed corruption in the top echelons of power. A concerned individual who demonstrated exemplary courage at tremendous risk to her life and reputation. Does this mean that whistle-blowers are ploughing a lonely furrow in our violent country with barely any protection?

A recent plea by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo for whistle-blowers to be protected must be taken seriously if we are to contain, let alone defeat, monumental corruption in our greed-infested democracy. The Public Disclosures Act (No 26 of 2000) makes provision for whistle-blowers to be protected from occupational detriment.

Corruption is more deadly than Covid-19, more infectious than HIV, more contagious than TB and more ferocious than cancer. It has thus far over the past 25 years cost this impoverished country R2-trillion in embezzled and looted money.

Public officials are most likely to detect wrongdoing in the workplace such as fraud, misconduct or corruption. However, experience shows that when a so-called whistle-blower reports such cases they may suffer various forms of retaliation. The protection of whistle-blowers is therefore an integral tool in an integrity framework to prevent and combat corruption. In the struggle for transparency and accountability, whistle-blowers play an invaluable role.

What we are witnessing graphically in 3D is a logical descent into the abyss of chaos. It is indeed sad and tragic that we treat whistle-blowers as pariahs for their moral courage. These are the consequences of a lawless society. Endemic and brazen corruption has been the pivotal figure contributing to the underdevelopment of the country and the growth of abject poverty.

Systemic corruption within the corridors of power and influence could be an ineradicable feature of our grotesquely imbalanced society. Usurpers and their looters-in-arms at all levels acquired a nuclear-level audacity to steal billions without facing consequences.

Three critical factors are at play in this deadly scenario. First is a lack of self-control with money. Second, is a lack of a sense of shame about the repercussions of detection. Third is that theft by stealth and denial pays handsomely in lawless South Africa at no cost to the perpetrators and their thieves-in-arms.

Tragically, there is a desperate dearth of honourable, courageous, patriotic men and women to do their enforcement duties no matter how powerful the violator is. It must be noted that the values of the elite constitute the dominant values that drive wider society’s values. Our society will never develop as long as greed and wasteful, conspicuous consumption of our scarce wealth is brazenly and illegally acquired.

The current expanding menace has eaten deep into the very foundation of our democracy and hardly anyone is immune to it. By brazenly killing whistle-blowers, we resemble Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s under the control of the drug lords of Medellín and Kali. DM