Hijackers on Board: How One Courageous Whistleblower Fought Against the Capture of SAA

By Cynthia Stimpel

She knew she might lose her job as group treasurer, yet Cynthia Stimpel decided to blow the whistle anyway. She simply could not keep quiet about an irregular deal of R256 million at South African Airways on Dudu Myeni’s watch. Although she succeeded in saving SAA millions, she paid a high price for speaking the truth. This is a very personal state capture story that shows how one brave individual helped to stop the rot.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tafelberg
• Release date: Jun 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9780624090663

Cynthia Stimpel

Cynthia Stimpel is a former Group Treasurer at South African Airways. She is the co-founder of the Citizens of Conscience Foundation and a member of the Amnesty International South Africa board of directors. She holds an MBA from the Milpark Business School, is a qualified yoga instructor and a proud grandmother of two. She lives in Johannesburg.

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Cynthia Stimpel

HIJACKERS

ON BOARD

How One Courageous Whistleblower

Fought Against the Capture of SAA

TAFELBERG

To all the whistleblowers,

wherever you are in this world.

To all those who stood up and spoke up for the truth,

no matter how small or large the stage.

Foreword by Mandy Wiener

Ask any South African about the country’s national carrier, South African Airways (SAA), and they will roll their eyes.

The reputation of the airline has become a blight, a punchline in a joke, an unnecessary indulgence, a dark pit into which we have pumped millions from the fiscus that could have been spent on fighting poverty and alleviating joblessness. All because of mismanagement and the greed of a few who apparently felt it was their time to eat.

It should not be like this. SAA should be a source of great pride and an advertisement for our country on a national stage as the flagship billboard of our brand.

So when a good, loyal patriot stood up against yet more looting from the airline and the national money pot, we all should have applauded and celebrated her, thanked her and rewarded her.

But sadly that is not the reality of how we treat whistleblowers in this country. Just ask the families of Moss Phakoe and Jimmy Mohlala: both were government employees who were gunned down for exposing corruption. No one has ever been brought to book for either of their murders and there has never been, and likely never will be, justice for their killings.

The landscape of post-democratic South Africa is littered with the lives and careers of people like Cynthia Stimpel. Good people, who felt compelled to speak up, expose wrongdoing and call out those who have broken the law for their own benefit.

This was clearly evident during the State Capture years when, time and again, we saw loyal citizens, driven by altruistic motives and a commitment to the truth, raise the flag where wrongs had been committed.

Instead of joining in the feeding frenzy and gluttonously grazing at the trough of the country, they screamed from the rooftops and warned the rest of us about what was going on right under our noses. We owe these individuals a great debt as they have displayed their dedication to improving the lives of all our people.

We have seen each of them come before the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo and speak their truths. Like Cynthia, they bear the scars of their experiences. They have suffered trauma and enormous loss. It has come at great personal expense. Many of them have told how their careers have been stalled, how they have been pilloried and pushed to the fringes of society, how they are unemployed and unemployable. They wear the scarlet letter ‘W’. No one wants a whistleblower in their ranks, it seems.

Cynthia’s truth as told in this book is an important, personal account of this experience. It is a window into the journey of a patriot who chose to raise the alarm rather than to look the other way. She didn’t have to do what she did. She chose to do it.

Like David Lewis from Corruption Watch, I too believe that there is a spectrum of whistleblowers. On the one end are those who are complicit in corruption, who are driven purely by personal motives, who speak out in order to save themselves. In the middle are those who realise that they are in too deep and that, if they remain silent, they will be seen as part of the cabal of wrongdoers. They are accidental whistleblowers. Then, at the other end are those individuals who are driven purely by altruistic motives, who see wrong and right as black or white. There is no grey and they cannot allow any transgression to go unchecked. Cynthia falls firmly into this category.

It is why she is told, repeatedly, ‘Just leave it, Cynthia.’ Or, ‘You ask too many questions, Cynthia.’ But she can’t leave it and she can’t stop asking questions because deep down she knows what she knows and she knows it is wrong.

Her story is a personification of how whistleblowers are treated in South Africa and it is so crucial that we hear it and learn from it. Cynthia’s journey from hate to forgiveness is a powerful one.

As she articulates at the end of the book, we also need to take from the stories of the whistleblowers and use these learnings to advocate for change. Many of Cynthia’s compatriots have pleaded with Justice Zondo to recommend an improvement in legislation and he has given an undertaking that this is being looked at. The law fails dismally in protecting whistleblowers and new progressive legislation is urgently required.

This momentum has to be harnessed if we are going to see true change. The only way we are going to win against the damaging cancer of corruption is if people like Cynthia are encouraged to expose it when they see it. That means they have to be enticed to come forward, and be rewarded for the risk. It also means the culture has to change.

Instead of the shame and fear that Cynthia speaks of, she should feel pride and appreciation.

We have to rid ourselves of the stigma of the ‘impimpi’ or the ‘tattletale’. Instead, those like Cynthia who see that wrong is being done and who raise the alarm should be given national orders; they must be respected and celebrated as heroes, and be appreciated and remunerated. They should be appointed to corporate boards as ethics and governance officers. We should not see these individuals as problematic or difficult. They can’t be dissuaded from doing the right thing.

Otherwise, why would others do it?

We owe Cynthia and all the others so much as a country. They deserve so much better.

MANDY WIENER

Johannesburg

April 2021

Prologue

I am struggling to breathe.

I am struggling to contain my emotions.

In my hands I hold the letter that will change the course of my life forever.

I’ve just been suspended from my job after almost ten years at South African Airways.

I walk with the suspension notice clutched to my chest as if it’s something precious, and yet all I want to do is run, away from the sixth floor and away from Airways Park. I want to get as far away as possible from the building next to OR Tambo International Airport, where the majority of South African Airways staff work. I want to burn the letter. Pretend this did not happen.

Fear and shame set in.

Fear of the unknown, fear of not knowing what the future will hold, fear of not going to work – something I have done almost every day of my life for 41 years. Fear of going to the Labour Court and the CCMA, places I have never been before.

I felt shame for being suspended on 5 July 2016. Shame for having my name in the newspapers and in the news. Shame that I had no job, and will get no job in the future. Shame because I could not talk to people about it. When people recognised me, heard my name or knew me and asked about it, I explained very briefly what had happened. I felt shame because there must be something wrong with me – I am the ‘odd one out’, the ‘outlier’, the one who stood up and spoke out and suffered the consequences.

I felt pain. I could not sleep. I felt pain in my stomach. My abdominal muscles would go into a spasm. With it came a loss of appetite. Some days, I survived only on rooibos tea.

And with all that fear, shame and pain also came self-doubt.

My intention in writing this book has primarily been to tell my story in my own words, but it is also an attempt to remove the stigma attached to being a whistleblower and to encourage all South Africans not to be afraid. To stand up and speak out.

In many respects, whistleblowing is still a foreign concept to us, as is evidenced by the types of questions I fielded from friends, family and colleagues after I took the scariest – but also proudest – decision of my working life.

‘Was it heroism or madness?’ ‘What did you expect to gain from this?’ ‘How could you put your family through this?’ ‘Why not just keep your head down, collect your salary and protect your pension?’

In short, the questions all boiled down to this: ‘Why did you become a whistleblower?’

I wish I could tell you that all the fears raised by my friends were overblown; that blowing the whistle does not exact an immense toll on your family; that it does not ruin your career; that it entails no personal financial risk.

I wish I could tell you that this story has a fairytale ending; that the good guys all win in the end; that the bad guys all get what they deserve.

I wish I could tell you that blowing the whistle is not a difficult and often lonely path.

Still, I wouldn’t change a thing.

This book is my attempt to tell you why I would make the same decision today; why, despite the difficulties and doubts, there is immense personal fulfilment in putting principle above personal gain; why the bad guys sometimes do get their comeuppance; why one should never give up hope of vindication.

But before taking the plunge, there is no guarantee of victory, gratitude or financial survival. That is why this book is also a plea for strengthening protections and support systems for whistleblowers.

None of us is perfect. Not one person can tell me that he has never told a lie or not done something he knew he shouldn’t do. The majority of us will twist the truth to prevent an argument or to save a person we love from being hurt. We sometimes do things to prevent further damage or pain.

I am certainly not perfect and I do not purport to be without my own set of problems – even blemishes on my character or my behaviour while working at SAA.

However, when one is faced with decisions and activities that are not aligned with the policies and procedures a company has to follow because it is bound by certain regulations, one cannot turn a blind eye. You cannot simply state there is nothing you can do about it.

In the end, my decision came down to my own principles, my own values, my own belief system, my faith in God and above all my integrity. It was about doing the right thing.

It was also about the position I held as Group Treasurer.

I was in a position where I could do something. It was about stopping something from becoming a disaster. It was about saving money for SAA and our country. It was about me doing my job. It was about speaking the truth. It was about holding people accountable. It was about not turning away.

I have been brought up to behave and act in a righteous manner and always to let my conscience be my guide. It was not always easy to do, but I always met challenges at school, at work, and even in our church community head-on.

I have always strived to do my best: towards my family, towards my friends, towards the church and especially in my places of employment.

Never in my entire life did I think I would have to do this.

But now I am known as Cynthia Stimpel, the SAA whistleblower.

PART I

SHAPED BY ADVERSITY

‘You may not control all the events that happen to you,

but you can decide not to be reduced by them.’

– Maya Angelou

1

The house with the ten rose bushes

In Bosmont, Johannesburg, there is a house with ten rose bushes in the garden – one for every child my parents had.

I come from a very large family, having been born on 2 December 1957 as the second eldest of Margaret and Joseph Anthony’s ten children. I was christened Cynthia Agnes Soraya Anthony.

The eldest three children were always introduced by my parents as ‘the three girls’ – Yolinda (called Linda), myself (Cynthy) and Druscilla (Dru). Then came three boys – Derek (Boyla), Reginald (Reg) and André (Bobby), and finally the ‘three small ones’ – Fiona (Yoni), Julian (Juks) and Alistair (Pallie).

Our brother Pierre passed away at the age of only one month with pleurisy, a disease of the lungs, in 1970.

My dad, Joseph Luke Anthony, was called ‘Poppa’ because my eldest sister, Linda, could not say ‘Pappa’. She could only manage ‘Poppa’ when she was small, so we all followed suit. My mother, Margaret Alice Anthony (née Rosenberg), was called Marge, but to us she was ‘Mummy’, ‘Mum’, ‘Ma’ or ‘Mother’ – the latter when we wanted to be assertive or state a point.

Poppa was an accountant. He was always working. I can still recall at one stage he was employed by a company called Green Tex, a manufacturer of blankets. We would always get new blankets, which was a special treat because we did not often receive anything new.

My dad used to walk to work at the time, because he did not own a car. There were buses and trains available, but not to his workplace. He didn’t complain, however. I recall sitting at his feet and looking up at him while he expressed his dream about owning a larger home for our family and a car. He would talk about the places we would travel to. I wanted to help him realise his dreams. I dreamt of winning money, which I would give him to buy that house or car.

He only managed to buy a car when I was in high school.

In the early years we lived in a small suburb in Johannesburg called Albertsville, or Sophiatown as it was known then, in Twist Street. My parents rented a two-roomed apartment, where three of the siblings were born – myself, Dru and Derek. Back then there was no segregation and my parents later reminded us that our neighbours were mixed like a good curry, made with different spices. Whites, Indians, Blacks and Coloureds all living in the same area.

Both my parents hailed from a town called Mahikeng, previously Mafikeng, and prior to that Mafeking. They moved to Johannesburg a year after Linda was born. I found it interesting that such a small town could have so many name changes.

We moved to Bosmont, near Maraisburg in the West Rand, in 1962 because of the Group Areas Act that came into effect after 1948. This law led to a spate of forced removals across the country every year. We had to move to a ‘Coloured area’ and could choose between the designated suburbs of Bosmont, Coronationville and Newclare, or the Western Coloured Township. As new houses were being built in Bosmont, my parents agreed to move there.

There we lived in a house of our own, with a dry and very stony yard. We could not purchase our own land or own a home back then. People of colour had to have a 99-year lease on properties and pay monthly rent. My dad always spoke of the land his father owned in Mafikeng, which was taken away from the family who had no papers to prove it and who received no compensation.

From the day we moved in, we all had chores to do and were taught by both parents to ‘fix’ things. While Poppa was off working, we would help Mum clean the house. On weekends we worked with him in the garden. We took a wheelbarrow down to the nearby sloot, a small ditch, where the ground was marshy and soggy. We chopped the lush and green grass into squares and loaded them onto the wheelbarrow. We laid out the grass on the left and in front of the house, creating a new lawn. The backyard was where we planted fruit trees, laid out a vegetable garden and even built a chicken coop. To the right of the house was the main gate and driveway, where we used to play. The front lawn was my favourite spot, where I could lie and read.

My parents planted a rose bush for each child around the house. It was the first time it felt as if I owned something – something that was mine alone. My roses were yellow, tinged with pink, and had a divine aroma. Linda had yellow roses and Dru’s were a beautiful deep red, with the most aromatic scent. Mum knew the names of each of the rose bushes, but we did not, and sadly we only took an interest in that aspect of it much later, as adults. But we knew they were our plants and we had to take care of them. Those very rose bushes, planted when we were all young, still exist today and are still growing and flowering each year at our parental home.

Although we considered ourselves poor materially – we only received new clothes and shoes at Christmas – I cannot recall ever going hungry or being without something to wear as a child or while living with my parents as an adult. Our clothes were hand-me-downs, until my mother could buy a sewing machine, after which she started making some of our clothing.

On weekdays after school it was time for chores and homework, and some playing. On Saturdays there was more playing, watching movies in someone’s garage, reading and resting. On Sundays we went to church, and had koeksisters and coffee after the service and then a lovely lunch, which we called the ‘Sunday Special’: chicken curry with rice, roast chicken or lamb, and roast potatoes. Dessert was jelly and home-made custard. Late in the afternoon we had tea with the leftover koeksisters or home-baked cake.

Later on I began to recognise every time my father had been retrenched by my parents’ quiet conversations and the fact that he would not leave for work. However, within a week or two, he would always be re-employed.

Summer holidays were the best. We finished our chores as quickly as possible and would play in the street with our friends all day until sunset, until our parents called us all home. We played kennetjie, gaatjieklip, rope-skipping and cops and robbers.

We stayed out so long, especially in summer, that our parents sometimes had to threaten us repeatedly before we would return home. We have such lovely memories of growing up and not feeling fear in the streets, or our homes. We left the front doors wide open on hot summer nights. There were no burglar bars and no high fences.

On winter evenings we would sit together as family after supper and read stories. We all became avid readers and simply loved books. My mother would read aloud from our books, my dad from the daily newspaper, The Star.

When a local library opened in Bosmont we stood in line to borrow our first library books. We were so proud. We received a book each and went home to read, after which we exchanged them with our siblings and read theirs, too. I went back that same day to return my book, in order to borrow another, but was told that I could not exchange a book on the same day. I had to come back the next day, which I duly did. I also finished that book within a day.

I returned every day thereafter to borrow new books for myself and my mother, as we were the fastest readers in the family, until the librarian decided to give me two cards each for Mum and me. Soon we were up to five cards and I no longer had to go to the library every day. Mrs Davidson, the librarian, used to say: ‘When the Anthonys enter my library, they deplete all my books.’

Autumn and winter nights were also about learning skills from Mum. Cooking, ironing, knitting. We would sit around and chat and read – everyone had to read a page from a book we all chose and the rest would knit while we listened. My brothers can all cook, iron and knit. Like all of us, they could knit their own woollen caps, gloves, scarves and jerseys.

However, while we were still very young, my mother did all that. I am often astounded by her achievements – that she could take care of nine children, feed us, clothe us, clean the house, do the laundry, cook, make us porridge for breakfast, have our lunches ready, comb our hair and even put in lovely ribbons before we left for school. My hair was so unruly that I lost my ribbons on a daily basis, which frustrated Mum and she had to start using string for my plaits to stay in.

My mother sewed most of our clothes, made the curtains for our home, the sheets and duvets on our beds and the tablecloths, and fixed my dad’s pants. She could just about do anything with her sewing