Whistleblower protection: OUTA's urgent plea following recent murders
Under a campaign called 'They Have Names', OUTA has compiled a list of some of those who were killed due to being whistleblowers. It said it compiled the information from public sources and it would be adding more names.
Image: OUTA
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has called for urgent, increased state funding to protect whistleblowers and witnesses and stronger safeguards for government auditors and investigators.
In a statement, OUTA said those who stand up to corruption are under attack. The organisation was commenting after the murder of Madlanga Commission witness Marius van der Merwe on Friday.
He was shot dead outside his Brakpan home.
“Whistleblowers, witnesses, auditors, investigators, political office-bearers and honest officials are being threatened, intimidated and killed, often by organised-crime networks that include corrupt police and public servants, as the Madlanga Commission has shown.
“Attacks have become increasingly brazen, and blatantly aimed at silencing those taking a stand against criminality and corruption.
On 5 December 2025, Marius van der Merwe was gunned down on arriving home in Brakpan, in front of his wife and children. Three weeks earlier, Van der Merwe gave evidence as "Witness D" at the Madlanga Commission investigating criminality in the criminal justice sector. Van der Merwe had told the commission how he had been forced to dispose of the body of a man who was killed during torture by EMPD members, and how currently suspended EMPD chief Julius Mkhwanazi had arrived at the scene to help with the cover-up.”
OUTA said Ekurhuleni Metro needed to be investigated noting that Mpho Mafole, Ekurhuleni's group divisional head of audit, was killed in June this year, days after submitting a report into the metro's R1.8 billion chemical toilet tender.
“He was the third Ekurhuleni financial investigator to be attacked: Simnikiwe Mapini, a metro finance department adjudicator, was shot dead on 8 December 2023, and Kagiso Lerutla, then the Ekurhuleni CFO and now the municipal manager, was shot and injured on 15 September 2023. Corruption is deeply entrenched, draining public funds, collapsing services and eroding public trust in government.”
Regarding the murder of Babita Deokaran, OUTA said those who arranged her killing had yet to be brought to justice.
Deokaran, the acting CFO at Gauteng Health who blocked corrupt payments to Tembisa Hospital; while six men were convicted of her murder two years later and given heavy sentences, they did not include either the shooters or those who hired them to kill her.
In the wake of van der Merwe's murder, President Cyril Ramaphosa called for justice and promised help for whistleblowers.
“As government, we will redouble our efforts to protect whistleblowers, including witnesses before the Madlanga Commission and the Commission itself, as they serve the nation with bravery in the face of criminal threats,” Ramaphosa had said.
OUTA said this promise must be backed up with action.
“We want Ekurhuleni investigated, and the killers and their paymasters who are protecting that nest of corruption and organised crime brought to justice. We want the masterminds behind Deokaran’s killing exposed and prosecuted.”
The organisation added that in August this year the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council called for an urgent increase in support and protection for whistleblowers and last month the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime warned that South Africa’s victim and witness support systems are inadequate.
OUTA calls for:
- Urgent, increased state funding to protect whistleblowers and witnesses.
- Stronger safeguards for government auditors and investigators.
- The public acknowledgment and honouring of those who were killed.
- Determined investigation and prosecution of these murders and attempted murders.
- Prosecution of the corruption these attacks aim to conceal.
- Implementation of recommendations from inquiries, commissions and expert reports.