While the Democratic Alliance (DA) has welcomed the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition’s approach on compensating whistleblowers who suffer serious losses because of their contribution to cleaning up corruption, the party is calling for a department-wide policy.

In a reply to a DA Parliamentary Question, Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Parks Tau confirmed that the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) will compensate whistleblowers who helped expose up to R2-billion of corrupt grants.

This comes as a result of whistleblowers being dismissed from work, suffering great torment and financial losses in the whistleblowing process.

DA spokesperson on Trade, Industry & Competition Toby Chance said the approach is not good enough that it only happens sporadically, and in this case only for the NLC.

“As a prime example, this policy must extend to the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) which has been plagued by allegations of governance and management failures, brought to the DA’s attention by numerous whistleblowers since August 2024. As they suffer similar fates to their colleagues at the NLC, they too should have recourse to a department-wide policy of whistleblower compensation,” stated Chance.

Further, he has written to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition Mswandile Masina, requesting him to summon Tau to account to the committee for his inaction in appointing an independent inquiry to investigate the allegations against SABS executives and board members.

Masina has agreed to the request in principle, but a date is yet to be set for the meeting.

“It is imperative that clean and transparent governance becomes the norm in our State institutions. One way of achieving that is to give whistleblowers the confidence that the information they reveal, once confirmed for its veracity, will result in their fair and just treatment in the hands of their employers and law enforcement agencies,” highlighted Chance.