We talk a lot in this country about public service, especially its absence. Those who captured the state did so in disguise: wearing the attire of public service. So you can forgive us for being fairly cynical, for thinking public service is all just subterfuge, a ruse by which enrichment of a few, not service to the greater public, is pursued.
Holding that view would, however, be to ignore how truly exceptional many of SA’s public servants are. One of those was Babita Deokaran, chief director of financial accounting in the Gauteng health department. Her courageous service seems to have required that she pay the ultimate price: on Monday morning she was gunned down outside her home in Johannesburg on returning from dropping her daughter off at school.
That killing bears all the hallmarks of a hit. Many shots are reported to have been fired at Deokaran at point-blank range through her car window, and no valuables, including her phone and laptop, were taken from the car.
At the time of her murder Deokaran was a witness in the investigation being conducted by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) into the personal protective equipment (PPE) procurement scandal in the Gauteng health department. But it wasn’t only in relation to the PPE matter that Deokaran gave evidence. The SIU has indicated that she had been a witness for some time, trying to secure a turnaround of a department that has seemed only to lurch from one inhumane corruption-related scandal to another.
That contribution earned praise from Gauteng premier David Makhura on her death, who said: “She took to heart the call to bring perpetrators of corruption and looting of public resources to book ... The result of her good deeds led to successful dismissals within the department and saw the institution of civil claims to recover public funds from businesses and government officials responsible for malfeasance and corruption.”
But any pretence that Deokaran was a much-valued, cherished employee in the Gauteng health department is a lie. Senior officials in the department are said to have been harassing her at the time of her death, and she was not protected by the department head.
In 2020, facing the most dubious of misconduct charges as the PPE procurement was taking place, she was suspended. As she explained: “Once all the PPE orders etc were done and some payments made, they dropped all charges against the two supply chain directors [who had also been suspended] and called them back to work. They offered the payments director [who, facing harassment, had resigned] to come back to work on a one-year contract and they moved me to Johannesburg health district.
“My assessment of the situation is that they wanted us out of the way because if these were real charges, why are they not pursuing them? I also see they do not want me back at the province as they see me as an obstacle in payments they want to make to certain companies.”
It certainly seems that someone or some people did not want her back at all. And while she will be hailed in her death, she never received in her lifetime the recognition she should have for the conscientious, exemplary service she provided the public.
Instead, as with so many courageous public servants who have sought to do their jobs, the reward she saw was only struggle: having to fight for job security and to fight off spurious misconduct allegations, harassment and intimidation.
State capture has given SA a seemingly endless roll of shame. It has also given us a roll of honour. While perhaps of little comfort to the immediate and extended family who grieve her, Babita Deokaran is among those on this roll of honour.
• Fritz, a public interest lawyer, is CEO of Freedom Under Law.
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