Zondo: SA should incentivise people to blow the whistle on corruption
Chief Justice Raymond Zondo believes there should be incentives in place for South Africans to blow the whistle on incidents of fraud and corruption.
Zondo spoke at the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council’s national dialogue in Boksburg on Wednesday.
Before his appointment as head of the judiciary, Zondo chaired the commission of inquiry into state capture, which lifted the lid on grand corruption and the theft of public resources at state institutions.
Zondo said whistleblowers, together with journalists, played an important role in flagging state capture.
"Whistleblowers and investigative journalists played a very critical role in the work of the commission. They helped to make sure that we know as much as we know about state capture today. Whistleblowers helped to stop state capture.
"Everybody talks about the protection of whistleblowers, but the commission went beyond that. Not only the protection, we also need to incentivise them to blow the whistle."
Zondo said everything possible should be done to obtain information on corruption.
"I am aware that some are critical of the recommendation we made, that whistleblowers should get some percentage of the money that we recover if their disclosure has been material in us recovering that money.
"Some criticised that people will make disclosure just because they want money, not because it is the right thing to do. I wish that everybody would make such disclosures because it is the right thing to do, not because they want money.
"Our levels of corruption are such that I do not think that we in South Africa can afford the luxury of saying we don't want information disclosed by whistleblowers who want money. I want all the information, whether you disclose because you want money or you disclose because it is the right thing to do, disclose all that information," he said.
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