Articles for Mandy De Waal

Who Killed Moses Tshake?

A man trying to fight corruption and restore financial discipline in the Free State was hijacked and maimed in February 2013, and died the following May. Moses Tshake was asking questions about the province’s corrupt agricultural projects before he died. Now the investigation into his murder has stalled. Mandy de Waal and Jon Pienaar investigate why.

How I narrowly avoided being conned

As an investigative journalist I’ve come face-to-face with grifters. I’ve interviewed fraudsters and studied sociopathy extensively. I’m fascinated by psychopaths and the peculiarities of the brain that make them different to the rest of us. Trying to understand the mental workings of good and evil is a hobby of mine.

South Africa’s water wars

Ma Gladys Mphepho hovers over a pot on a two plate cooker in her shack in Papamani, an informal settlement outside of Grahamstown. “We do not have dignity,” she says, stirring the rice, flavoured with beef stock, that is her family’s Sunday lunch. “We do not know what it means to have dignity. Forget about any question of dignity,” says Mphepho.

Poverty and waste - the other side of Grahamstown

On the edge of the university hamlet of Grahamstown, there’s a municipal dump where people discard trash. It’s far enough out of town to not smell the stench – or for most locals not to be reminded of the haunting plight of the poor who subsist off the waste.