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‘WHISTLEBLOWERS ACT AT THEIR OWN RISK’

29/10/2020 00:57:00 BY SABELO MAJOLA

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MBABANE – Are whistleblowers protected in the country?

This question begs to be answered following that two officers, who appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), were redeployed and fired respectively and it is believed that this had to do with the fact that they made damning allegations against their seniors.

This has raised fears that making submissions before the PAC does not guarantee automatic protection.

In fact, it is the members of the committee that are protected by the Parliamentary Privileges Act of 1957, not the person or people making submissions.

In recent weeks, two people who made submissions before the PAC were ‘relieved’ of their duties after exposing supposedly questionable acts that they came across while executing their duties.

One of the individuals is former Clerk to Parliament, Ndvuna Dlamini.

He was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture after making startling allegations before the PAC.

Witnessed

The redeployment of Ndvuna came shortly after he presented a number of concerns that he had witnessed as he went about his duties as the Parliament controlling officer.

In his presentation to the PAC, he claimed that his duties were being interfered with by politicians, such that he was not in control of trips undertaken by politicians as most were sllegedly awarded by presiding officers.

The presiding officers of the 11th Parliament are Senate President Lindiwe Dlamini and Speaker Petros Mavimbela.

Ndvuna also purported that there were politicians who were keen on abusing the King’s name to carry out their agenda. Due to this, at the time, he had claimed that he was contemplating seeking audience with the monarch.

Subsequent to some of the allegations made by Ndvuna, the Senate president last year wrote a letter wherein she questioned the motive behind the clerk making statements about her, which she claimed were untrue, to the PAC.

Fired

On the other hand, a driver of Eswatini’s High Commissioner, Dumisile Sukati, was fired after making damning allegations against his principal when he was skyped by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in August last year.

This was when the PAC was probing incidents that led to a government vehicle being involved in an accident in SA, resulting in high costs in repairs.

Patrick Rambau, an official chauffeur of the high commissioner, told the PAC that he was not driving the vehicle when it was involved in the accident, despite that diplomatic regulations stated that the high commissioner must be chauffeured.

Allegations have been made that Rambau’s submission to the PAC was responsible for the termination of his work contract.

It turns out these people are not protected by any piece of legislation and they are making the submissions before the committee at their own risk.

This was revealed by Human Rights Commissioner Sabelo Masuku, when engaged on the glaring trend of whistleblowers being subjected to harsh treatment.

A whistleblower is a person who informs on a person or organisation engaged in an illicit activity.

Masuku did not want to commit himself on whether they were removed following their submissions to the commission, but he did reveal that making submissions or revealing acts of corruption before the PAC did not guarantee one protection but they did it at their own risk.

Clarity

Masuku also gave clarity in that not everyone who shared or leaked information could be defined as a whistleblower.

He made an example of police investigating any matter that they could confront a person and ask them to volunteer information and he said it was up to the investigated person to ask how they were protected.

He said it was then the duty of the investigator to quote any law that protected the person sharing the information, but in the case of the PAC, Masuku said he was not aware of any piece of legislation that protected the whistleblowers.