JOHANNESBURG — An accountant working on a high-profile corruption case was killed along with his son by unknown gunmen while traveling on one of South Africa’s main highways. A government health department employee who warned of illegal dealings worth nearly $50 million was shot 12 times in the driveway of her home.
The slayings and other cases have anti-corruption groups urging South African authorities to provide far better protection for whistleblowers. They also have fueled outrage over widespread graft linked to government contracts, which has plagued Africa’s most developed economy for years but appears to continue unabated.
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime counted a total of 1,971 assassination cases in South Africa between 2000 and 2021, with whistleblowers accounting for many of the targets.
The specialist accountant and liquidator, 57-year-old Cloete Murray, was working on the financial accounts of a company that was heavily implicated in allegedly bribing government ministers and others to win huge state contracts.
The company, previously known as Bosasa and now named African Global Holdings, was one of the most prominent subjects of the Zondo Commission a judicial inquiry into government and other high-level corruption during the 2008-2019 presidency of Jacob Zuma, who is on trial on separate corruption allegations.
Murray was shot in the head while driving with his son in an SUV on the N1 highway just outside Johannesburg in March. He died in the hospital.
His son, Thomas Murray, who worked with his father, was declared dead at the scene.
No one has been arrested in the killings, which police said had the hallmarks of a professional hit.
South African anti-corruption organization Corruption Watch said the killings of the Murrays was further evidence that the country faced “a crisis in terms of the rule of law.”
“Levels of public confidence in our law enforcement capabilities, not to mention the political will to hold criminals and the corrupt accountable, have dropped to an all-time low,” Corruption Watch executive director Karam Singh said. “As the most recent example, the brazen murder of Cloete Murray and his son sends a chilling and intimidating message to anyone seeking to end impunity for corruption and crime. This must represent a turning of the tide for our country.”
The death of Babita Deokaran, an employee of the health department in Gauteng province, already underlined the dangers for whistleblowers in South Africa. Six men have been charged with murder in her August 2021 slaying.
Deokaran had spoken up about potentially corrupt payments to more than 200 companies by the health department and was a key witness in a probe by the country’s anti-corruption Special Investigating Unit into contracts worth more than $45 million.
She was shot multiple times inside her car soon after dropping her daughter off at school. Her story has become a rallying call.
Deokaran’s killing spurred another corruption whistleblower, Athol Williams, to leave the country, he said. Williams testified before the Zondo Commission implicating about 39 parties in corrupt activities at the country’s tax authority, the South African Revenue Service. Williams is a former partner at a consultancy firm.
