This position paper was developed in collaboration between the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa, the Legal Resources Centre and Open Secrets.
- The Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF) is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) established in 2017 to protect whistleblowers and advocate on their behalf when their revelations deal with the African public interest. PPLAAF provides confidential legal assistance, secure communication channels, media coordination, safety and technical assistance, psychosocial support, and public advocacy to whistleblowers across the continent.
- The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) is a non-governmental public interest law centre that seeks to empower individuals and communities through the law, promoting social justice, championing equality, and realising the human rights enshrined in the Constitution. The LRC combines strategic litigation and public advocacy to advance the Constitution, with offices around the country.
- Open Secrets (OS) is an independent civil society organisation which carries out investigations, legal interventions and advocacy campaigns to hold corporations, private individuals and state actors accountable for economic crimes especially where there are human rights abuses.
Against the backdrop of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture (CISC), this collective civil society response to corruption seeks to promote constitutional principles of accountability, transparency and democratic governance. A key focus area is to advocate for the advancement of legislative protection of whistleblowers.
Whistleblowers, as acknowledged in the CISC, play an invaluable role in exposing malfeasance, corruption, fraud, and other forms of wrongdoing and have been described as “one of the most effective weapons against corruption”. The CISC goes on to accurately note that “recent events in South Africa which will be well known to every reader make it the highest priority that a bona fide whistleblower who reports wrongdoing should receive, as a matter of urgency, effective protection from retaliation.”
The CISC made several critical findings and recommendations, including that the current Protected Disclosures Act (PDA) fails to provide clear procedures for whistleblowers to follow, lacks adequate physical protection mechanisms, does not reward or incentivise whistleblowers, disclosures fail to consistently reach investigative entities, retaliation against whistleblowers must be criminalised, and protection should be extended beyond employment relationships to cover all forms of retaliation.
The effectiveness of whistleblowing as a weapon against corruption is dependent on the state’s ability to legislate and implement adequate protective measures for whistleblowers. This position paper, intended to inform and promote public participation regarding the PDA Amendment Bill that is currently being finalised by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Affairs for publication, summarises what we recommend regarding legislative reform that ought to improve the protection of whistleblowers in South Africa.
In the 2026 State of the Nation Address, the President highlighted the amendments to the PDA as one of the pillars of state’s crackdown on corruption, citing that the proposed amendments would ensure the criminalisation of retaliation against whistleblowers and the provision of psychosocial, legal and financial support to whistle-blowers.
As of April 2026, the promise to bring legislation to protect whistleblowers to parliament was fulfilled when the Protected Disclosure Bill, 2026 (PDB) was published for public comment. The PDB repeals its predecessor entirely and thus provides for a new framework for whistleblower protection.
In addressing the key legislative advancements necessary to protect whistleblowers and foster accountability, this paper addresses the following:
- Shortcomings in the existing legislation;
- Recommendations to improve the current legislative regime, including comparative examples of best practice and whether these recommendation are present in the PDB; and
- Next steps to effect improvements to the new PDA through the proposed Amendment Bill.
Through this commentary on the legislative protection for whistleblowers as an anti-corruption mechanism, we seek to better position South Africa to hold those responsible for corruption to account, strengthen key state institutions and safe-guard society from abuses of power.
The Civil Society Working Group on State Capture (CSWG) is a coalition of civil society organizations formed in 2018 to advance democratic accountability in the wake of state capture – the systematic weakening of state institutions in order to extract state funds for private gain.
