Behind the Concrete Curtain
The road from speaking up at Sasol to where I am now—self-imposed banishment in an adjacent country, away from my home—has been nothing less than a harrowing, soul-crushing slow-motion apocalypse. This journey has spanned over nine years, leaving countless broken pieces of my life in its wake.
I have lost everything because I applied my ethical code to my job at Sasol. I lost my career, my health, sometimes my sanity, my hope, my marriage, my dogs, and precious time with my children that I will never get back.
As I write this, it has been a solid nine years since I started to expose the illegal dumping of hazardous waste at Sasol—a solid nine years of constant onslaught by Sasol in its relentless war of attrition against me. Despite what they would have everyone believe through their propagandistic codes of ethics and claims of being a “responsible corporate citizen,” Sasol chose to completely ignore my disclosures and instead crucified the messenger. They blatantly covered up the broken chemical sewer valve on 2nd March 2019, only ten days after I testified at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) about it being broken in the open position.
I have been informed of how long a High Court case can take, but I can also see for myself, given the pathetic state of the South African justice system, that I MAYBE will see some kind of end to the court battles in the next ten years… if I am lucky. This means I would have lost twenty years of my life to this battle simply because I did what was right for the people of South Africa: to stop a massive for-profit company from dumping extremely dangerous mutagenic and carcinogenic hazardous waste into our country’s biggest freshwater resource. I will be around 55 then, having lost a third of my life to constant worry, immeasurable loss, an empty bed, an empty hand, an empty house, loneliness, and missing the opportunity to see my children grow up—my life is on pause.
Five heavily implicated Sasol management members have continued to intimidate me by initiating court action against me under the guise of a protection order. While they offered zero evidence to the court of me harassing them, they proved that their actions are Sasol-sanctioned, as they are using the very same law firm that Sasol employs in both the criminal case against them and my own private lawsuit. This is a clear conflict of interest.
One manager, who unlawfully suspended me three times and handled my constructive dismissal, also covered up the indecent assault of junior Sasol employees. Under his direct control, a Sasol manager assaulted several employees who violated the Sasol code of conduct, forcing them to pull down their pants in his office and subjecting them to Apartheid-style bare-bottom beatings. This assault was covered up, and the manager was allowed to resign immediately instead of facing the Sasol disciplinary process or criminal charges for the deliberate indecent assault of Sasol employees. For this cover-up, the manager who unlawfully suspended and dismissed me received only a two-week suspension. This is the culture of fear at Sasol: cover up illegal actions by managers and crucify the whistleblower.
Don’t get me wrong; I fear no fight. I will battle in court any day, every day, all day against Sasol’s tyranny. But this waiting and the blatant impotence of the South African justice system are utterly abhorrent. The people of South Africa should set fire to it and burn it to ash.
The President, who has publicly stated that “whistleblowers need more and better protection, and not just the witness protection programme,” is just an empty sack of wind—nothing but a blowhard of epic proportions. Absolutely NOTHING has come from the Zondo Commission, which means the criminals still breathe free air while those who testified and suffered retaliation receive no justice. We, the people of South Africa, don’t get justice.
The President is impotent in his duties as the leader of the South African people. He hides from his responsibilities and promises to the people, like a stack of dollars on a couch. The SAHRC is utterly useless in protecting the human rights of South African citizens. They did not lift a single finger to prevent my unlawful suspensions immediately after I made my protected disclosures to the SAHRC or my unlawful constructive dismissal, despite my many pleading emails and phone calls to them for help and protection against Sasol’s illegal actions. Since 2019, they have not progressed one inch in their so-called investigation into Sasol polluting the Vaal River and trampling on the human rights of South Africans for a few extra billion rand in profit.
In both the criminal case against Sasol and my own lawsuit against them, I am supposed to tell the court how being a whistleblower has destroyed my life. How can I explain using only words just how badly this has impacted me? How am I supposed to quantify how much I am owed for the historical and ongoing tragedy I am suffering? The losses I have endured—my family’s suffering, my children’s continued struggles—are unquantifiable. I am an absent father against my will, hiding not only for my own safety but also to protect my children from potential crossfire when assassins come for me again. How do I convey the utter and absolute injustice to any court?
No amount of money can ever buy back a second of the time I have lost with my children, nor can it replace the time they lost from me not being there for them, the time I spent contemplating suicide, or the time I spent crying in anguish. No amount of money can repair the damage my wife has suffered mentally or the medication she had to take just to cope with losing our family’s stability and future—losing the safety of her home.
How do I explain to anyone on the outside that my children’s futures have been irrevocably altered due to their father upholding the so-called “ethics code of Sasol” by “speaking up when others do not”? In retrospect, it is clearly just Nazi-like propaganda used by Sasol to lull their employees into believing that the inherent “culture of fear” is not real.
My children’s futures, even more so than mine, hang in the balance now. They could lose their father to assassins or, simply, to a heart attack or stroke caused by immense stress. They could lose their mother to stress-induced injury as they face bullying from kids who don’t understand why their father is no longer around. They struggle to comprehend why their family, their home, is not complete with both a mother and father like their friends’ homes.
How do I convey the distress I feel because my wife had to undergo major surgery due to stress? How does one explain to an outsider how the historical facets of destruction have affected your life or your family’s lives when there exists an ongoing deluge of countless moments of despair and hopelessness for everyone involved?
How do I show the countless tears that have stained the carpet in front of my computer during those nights spent in utter loneliness and despair—the nights I planned my suicide just to escape this pain?
How do I explain that after surviving one assassination attempt in March last year—when my dogs fought off multiple home intruders on their way to me in broad daylight—and facing other clear signs of imminent threats that forced me to hide in another country, I had to give up my dogs for adoption before they were poisoned, simply because I could not take them with me?
Clearly, the intruders were not there for my possessions but for me. After that day, tampering with my alarm system, kicking my security door off its hinges, and moving roof tiles on my roof began.
I can say this wholeheartedly about my dogs, Luci and Furri—they saved my life. Not just that day, but countless times in more ways than I can express in words. They kept me from death’s door, not only through their kindness but also by protecting me from would-be assassins with their fierce loyalty.
Saying goodbye to them was, without a doubt, the most difficult thing I have ever done, and it will haunt me until my final breath. No amount of money can replace them.
I don’t have the answers at this moment. Sasol’s supposedly “revered” senior counsel, Advocate Mike Hellens, who they borrowed from his busy schedule of Stalingrad-ing the Zuma and Gupta cases to defend their impeccable name, called me an “idiot” loudly in the halls of the Evander Court building.
Mike clearly and purposefully told the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE’s) investigating officer that “Ian is an idiot,” exclaiming, “Look, he is clearly crazy” when I laughed at what he said about seeing nothing wrong with the chemical sewer valve during his inspection. He said this loudly enough for me and some of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) guys to hear, likely as part of the legendary Stalingrad tactics to intimidate me.
Well, Mike picked the wrong unicorn to try and intimidate. I will haunt Mike’s retirement dreams because I refuse to be intimidated.
This, I can promise Sasol and Mike: if they think of prolonging this case, I will not waste my time or risk the people of South Africa any longer. It remains my legal right to make further protected disclosures to the South African Parliament and the media to avert an imminent threat to the environment or myself. With the evidence I have, I can show that Sasol continues its hazardous waste practices, posing a real threat to both people and the environment, while they continue their intimidation through illegal court actions. If they want to play games, I will stop the circus and hand all my evidence over.
By Ian Erasmus – Sasol whistleblower