Exposed corruption at state training body

Tumiso Mphuthi headed the supply chain division at the Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) that serves South Africa’s construction sector.

SETAs are statutory skills training bodies funded by a mandatory 1% payroll levy on businesses in South Africa that raises almost R20 billion (US$1.1bn) a year. The system was created to address South Africa’s disastrously high youth unemployment rate, which has increased from 29% to 34% in the last decade, by providing school leavers with skills training tailored to meet industry needs.

However, SETAs have increasingly been criticised for simply imposing a wasteful additional tax on employers that does not deliver any improvements in skills development and employability among the country’s jobless youth. High-profile corruption and mismanagement scandals have led to accusations that SETAs have become little more than a looting machine benefitting the corrupt leadership of the ruling party and their cronies.

In July 2024, Mphuthi wrote to the newly appointed minister of higher education Nobuhle Nkabane, warning her of evidence of corrupt practices at the construction SETA. She had previously made protected disclosures accusing the CEO, Malusi Shezi, of tender rigging, and taken her allegations to the board and parliament, the Sunday Times reported.

The allegations, which have been widely reported, were denied by Shezi, who described them as “false and malicious” and a “smear campaign”.

Instead of having her allegations investigated, Mphuthi was suspended and charged with the very same irregularities she had reported. “I have constantly been failed, and it did not make sense to me why these allegations, which are backed up with documentary evidence, are being ignored,” she told the Sunday Times.

At the same time, her reputation was being tarnished without substantiation. “If I am guilty, why has it been two years since my suspension and they have not produced any evidence of any wrongdoing? I had hoped that the minister would intervene and launch independent investigations [but] this has never happened. I have approached her office three more times since last July and still nothing has happened.”

Earlier this year she escalated her fight to the presidency. “I have now been on suspension for nearly two years. I am financially and emotionally exhausted, forced to fund my legal defence while the CEO uses state resources to fight whistleblowers,” Mphuthi wrote in a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa. “I believe I am being punished simply for doing my job: upholding compliance and refusing to turn a blind eye to corruption. My situation sends a dangerous message to other public officials: that reporting corruption will destroy your life.”

Following the controversy surrounding Nobuhle Nkabane’s appointment of new SETA board chairs with politically connected candidates, several political parties called on President Ramaphosa to remove the higher education minister from her position citing, among other concerns, her alleged disregard for Mphuthi’s plea for assistance. In response, Ramaphosa relieved Nkabane of her duties.

Mphuthi, meanwhile, feels bullied, abandoned and betrayed. “The message this sends is: if you are corrupt, you are going to be compensated. If you stand up for the truth, you will be persecuted,” she said in an interview with the civil action group, Organisation for Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA).

For the past seven years, OUTA has exposed corruption at a number of SETAs and, related to these investigations, uncovered gross mismanagement of funds meant for needy students at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, resulting in several official investigations that led to a spate of dismissals and resignations.

Mphuthi told OUTA she feels unsafe after a suspicious vehicle followed her home, and her children fear for her life. “I am being persecuted for standing up for the truth, and no one is supporting me, no one is listening to me. I guess they will listen to me one day, when it’s too late. I will probably get my flowers when I’m six feet underground. Because that’s how our government operates.”

For Mphuthi, the treatment she was meted out was aimed at discouraging others in her position who might wish to report corruption. “To think I’m sitting at home for almost three years and being punished for reporting irregularities. It can’t be right,” she says. “You are seen as a stumbling block if you are a whistleblower. They are sending a very wrong message.”

She has also been forced to seek treatment for panic attacks due to stress, but says she will “definitely do this again. If something is wrong, it’s wrong. These irregularities that I exposed, they don’t just affect the SETA. They affect taxpayers, they affect job creation. It affects the entire economy.”

She hopes that by coming forward, other whistleblowers in South Africa’s SETAs will be inspired to do the same. “In the SETAs, corruption is deep. There are many people who want to speak out, but they are scared. Whistleblowers are not protected – they are targeted. I hope this will motivate them. If we don’t stand up and expose corruption, it will never end.”