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Targeted for Telling the Truth: Tumiso Mphuthi’s Fight to Expose Corruption
A long fight that began with a single instruction
When whistleblower Tumiso Mphuthi first chose to speak up, she did not imagine it would shape her life for the better part of a decade. Her journey began in 2018 when a questionable instruction landed on her desk at the Construction Education and Training Authority, known as CETA. She was asked to help appoint a company that would deliver a predetermined disciplinary outcome. It was, to her, an unlawful instruction. Reporting it felt like the only honest path to take.
That decision marked the beginning of a difficult and lonely road. Mphuthi says every protected disclosure since then has resulted in the same consequence. She would expose alleged wrongdoing. Her concerns would go unanswered. She would then become the target.
Years of disclosures and the cost of honesty
Between 2018 and 2024, she filed four protected disclosures relating to what she described as irregular tender practices and other questionable decisions involving supply chain management. According to her, none of these reports were investigated. Instead, the people she accused were promoted. She found herself suspended from her role for three years and eventually charged with the very irregularities she had tried to flag.
Speaking to the Cape Times, she said she had developed thick skin over the years. Reporting wrongdoing remained the right thing to do in her view. She refused to become what she called an accomplice through silence.
CETA leadership has previously denied the allegations and offered no fresh comment when approached this week.
Recognition abroad and fear at home
Despite the challenges, Mphuthi received international recognition when she was awarded the Blueprint for Free Speech Whistleblowing Prize for 2025. The honour highlighted her courage, although she admits it brought little comfort in a country where whistleblowers often feel unsafe.
Her comments also landed at a deeply sensitive moment for South Africans. The nation is still reeling after the killing of Marius van der Merwe, a key witness at the Madlanga Commission who had implicated members of the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department. His murder outside his Brakpan home ignited fresh public concern about the treatment of people who come forward.
Many South Africans used social media to express disbelief and anger, questioning how witnesses and whistleblowers can be expected to speak out when the risks are so visible. Some said the recent events show why wrongdoing continues unchecked.
Left out in the cold for telling the truth
For Mphuthi, the hardest part has been watching her disclosures disappear into silence. She believes she was pushed out rather than heard. She was suspended in 2023 and now doubts she will ever be welcomed into the public sector again.
In her words, institutions prefer people who help wrongdoing thrive rather than challenge it. She has made peace with the idea that her career may never recover. What she cannot make peace with is keeping quiet.
Her story is another reminder of how complex and dangerous the act of speaking up can be in South Africa. It also raises an uncomfortable question for the public. If doing the right thing comes with such a heavy price, who will feel brave enough to follow?
Also read: The Day Danville Lost Its Protector: Community Mourns Chris Strydom
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Source: IOL
Featured Image: Government Executive
