Why didn’t Babita Deokaran have witness protection, asks family of slain Gauteng health department whistle-blower

Babita Deokaran's bullet-riddled car.(Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

By Ferial Haffajee

24 Aug 2021

Car window pockmarked by bullets is evidence of the murder of Gauteng Department of Health official Babita Deokaran.

The Mercedes in which Babita Deokaran was shot dead stood in the garage, its right window shattered.

Bullets had been fired at point-blank range into the driver’s window as the 53-year-old single mother returned from dropping off her 16-year-old daughter at school on Monday at 8.20am. Deokaran dropped her daughter off at school every weekday.

A woman walks past the house of senior Gauteng health department financial officer Babita Deokaran, who was gunned down outside her Johannesburg South home on Monday, 23 August 2021. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

She lived in a cluster complex in the south of Johannesburg, and the shooter or shooters must have been monitoring her movements, said a family member who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Deokaran was shot in the driveway of the complex, which did not appear to have a CCTV camera. Nearby cameras at a house and a garage had malfunctioned at exactly the time she was killed, the family member said, although Daily Maverick has learned that the police have identified the car used in the crime.

Daily Maverick was reliably informed that none of Deokaran’s possessions was removed from the vehicle, including her phone, handbag and laptop.

“The hitmen are still out there,” the family member said, adding that the police had warned the family to be careful.

“Whistle-blowers have integrity. You would expect them to be protected,” said the family spokesperson.

“She had the courage to expose maladministration. She was fearless. She was patriotic. The family hopes the perpetrators are found and brought to book,” he said.

The traumatised family gathered at Deokaran’s home on Tuesday. Just over a month ago, they had gathered for another death – that of her brother who succumbed to Covid-19.

Babita Deokaran's bullet-riddled car. (Photo: Shiraaz Mohamed)

The Special Investigating Unit said earlier that Deokaran had been a witness for some time. The corruption investigators had used her evidence even before the investigation into the R332-million personal protective equipment (PPE) scandal in 2020 that was linked to the Gauteng Department of Health. The unit said that witness protection was not a standard service as thousands of witnesses gave them evidence. It was only arranged on a threat assessment or if a whistle-blower felt unsafe.

Deokaran had worked in the Gauteng Department of Health since its inception, and she wrote in a message to Shan Bolton, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation director, that: “Every year we have a different team of people who come in and loot, and the funds seem to be a bottomless pit.”

The department has been steeped in scandal, and Deokaran saw it all and then blew the whistle, the SIU said. Under former Health MEC Brian Hlongwa, a corrupt deal with 3P Consulting worth R1.2-billion in 2007 was finally in court in 2020 after an SIU investigation. And the Life Esidimeni case in 2016 in which 143 vulnerable people died still haunts the department. The inquest into that act of mismanagement under the then Gauteng Health MEC, Qedani Mahlangu, is still ongoing.

Gauteng Premier David Makhura, Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi and Community Safety MEC Faith Mazibuko visited the family on Tuesday to pay their respects and told them that her evidence had been invaluable. But Deokaran faced trumped-up charges under the administration of Health MEC Bandile Masuku and she had been demoted to the Johannesburg district office from the provincial head office to get her out of the way, she told Bolton. The charges were later dropped and she suspected that this was because the health department had made the payments for the dodgy PPE contracts.

“She is the centre of her family. She delighted in getting the family together. She was very religious and got the whole family together to pray on Zoom on a Friday evening,” said the family spokesperson, who switched between speaking about her in the present and then in the past tense as if the truth of her death was still setting in.

He said that her 16-year-old daughter is traumatised and that the extended family of 16 nieces and nephews had loved their aunt dearly.

“She took care of the family and the indigent [family] in Durban,” he said, adding that she had brought her late brother and sister-in-law to live with her so that she could take care of them when they contracted Covid-19. “She was our backbone,” he said.

Deokaran will be buried in Phoenix, Durban, on Thursday. She leaves behind her daughter, a brother, and sister, and a large extended family. DM

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