Rabbie Serumula, author, award-winning poet, journalist.
We have a strange relationship with drowning people in South Africa. We do not ask why they are in the water. We do not ask who pushed them. We do not ask who built the broken bridge that collapsed beneath them. Instead, we gather on the riverbank and debate whether the person screaming for help deserves to be saved.
That is the dilemma presented by Linda Gxasheka, the suspended head of human resources at the City of Ekurhuleni. Gxasheka recently opened criminal cases alleging political interference in appointments, manipulation of CVs, and a system in which jobs and promotions may have been exchanged for favours and money.
She claims she was pressured to assist in changing the CV of a senior official and that her refusal almost cost her the renewal of her contract. She says she has handed evidence to the police and wants the allegations tested through criminal investigations.
Yet Gxasheka is not arriving on the public stage as an untarnished whistleblower. She has herself faced scrutiny, suspension and allegations arising from previous investigations into governance failures within the municipality.
