WHISTLE-blowers in the public service who refuse to comply with illegal instructions from politicians or superiors should be better protected, says Department of Public Works director-general Mziwonke Dlabantu.
Although public servants have the right, in terms of the Public Finance Management Act, to request instructions in writing and then to lodge these with the auditor-general and the Treasury, this is seldom done, as they fear retribution.
Had the 13 public servants facing charges in connection with the renovations of President Jacob Zuma’s private residence at Nkandla followed this procedure, they would have been protected, says Mr Dlabantu.
Instead, they are facing charges for carrying out instructions from their superiors. None of them has been found to have benefited materially in any way.
Their motivation is unknown and "could have been to please their superiors" or a case of "being used to bending the rules", says Mr Dlabantu.
"If a minister gives you an illegal instruction, you have a right to request that it be issued in writing. Generally people are scared to do that. I have raised it in discussions with the National Treasury that protection of whistle-blowers should be strengthened."
Some of the public works officials who have been charged told City Press last month they had been ordered to destroy confidential documentation and not keep notes of meetings on the R246m Nkandla project. Mr Dlabantu said "there was a monumental misunderstanding" of how to handle confidential and classified documents. "If something is classified it doesn’t mean a document should not exist. It means it should be handled correctly," he says.
The officials told City Press they planned to expose instructions from their superiors to bypass tender procedures and take shortcuts from 2009 when construction began.
The Nkandla project was symptomatic of the chaos that prevailed in the department prior to 2012, when the turnaround strategy was put in place.
This included "a very basic collapse of the systems of the department itself", says Mr Dlabantu, who was appointed to his position a year ago.
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