Tumiso Mphuthi was one of two South African winners of an international whistleblower award last year. She lived to tell her story; the other, Pamela Mabini, didn’t.
Mabini alerted authorities to incidents of sex trafficking, rape and racketeering at a church in her hometown, Gqeberha. She was shot dead outside her family home early last year.
She and Mphuthi were the South African winners of the Blueprint for Free Speech whistleblowing awards.
Mphuthi exposed corruption at the Construction Education & Training Authority (Ceta).
She joined the authority in 2012 and established its supply chain management “from scratch”. Recently she completed a BCom in public procurement.
When she talks about her job, it is with emotion — and a few tears — but also determination. She insists that where she finds something wrong, she fixes it.
In 2018, she says, she was given “an unlawful instruction”. An executive ordered her to appoint specific companies. “For me, it was taboo,” she says.
She reported this to the department of higher education & training and met the then minister, Naledi Pandor. No investigation followed. Instead, she says, she was marginalised.
In 2019, she uncovered procurement irregularities: companies appointed despite failing to attend compulsory briefing sessions, altered submission registers and fraudulent purchase orders.
She submitted a protected disclosure statement, attaching evidence. “The audit committee didn’t do anything,” she says.
Ceta was placed under administration in 2020. Mphuthi was suspended. She was reinstated but later removed from supply chain management after refusing to help disqualify a compliant bidder.
When she returned in 2021, she reviewed tenders awarded during her absence and found further irregularities. By then, the chair of the bid adjudication committee — later appointed CEO — was implicated in several tenders she had flagged. The CEO said her recommendations were “nonsense”, she says.
South Africa has a tragic history of whistleblowers being murdered for exposing corruption
— Tumiso Mphuthi
In June 2023 she was suspended again. The charges against her numbered 20, then 43 more were added. On suspension, though still formally employed, she is unable to work, unsure if she will be cleared, dismissed or quietly pushed out.
“You don’t know what your future looks like,” she says. “You don’t know if you must start over somewhere else or wait for a system that keeps delaying.” Her career, she says, built over two decades, is effectively frozen.
Mphuthi escalated her concerns to, among others, the Ceta board, the minister and the presidency. “[Parliament] acknowledged receipt,” she says. “But nothing happened.” Of the presidency, she is blunt: “I was ignored. They didn’t even acknowledge receipt.” Only the public protector’s office engaged with her complaint.
The fallout has not been confined to Mphuthi. She says the anxiety has filtered into her home, affecting her children. “They are scared,” she says. “They ask questions when I leave the house. They worry about whether I will come back. As a parent, it’s painful to know that your children are carrying fear because you chose to do the right thing.”
Mphuthi hopes her decision to speak out will encourage others in the system. According to the award’s judges, she reported her concerns “to the highest levels of government, but instead of having her allegations investigated, she was persecuted for standing up for the truth”.
Mphuthi says her case fits a wider and deadly pattern. “South Africa has a tragic history of whistleblowers being murdered for exposing corruption,” she says. She mentions Babita Deokaran, assassinated for exposing theft in the Gauteng health department and Tembisa hospital specifically. Since then there have been other killings, among them that of Mabini, who also blew the whistle on Nigerian pastor Timothy Omotoso, who was acquitted by the courts but declared a prohibited immigrant and deported.
Mabini survived a first attempt on her life in 2018 after receiving death threats.
Blueprint for Free Speech says the courage shown by Mabini and Mphuthi deserves recognition. “We feel the … selflessness displayed by these two whistleblowers deserves to be honoured,” the organisation says.
For Mphuthi, recognition is bittersweet. “International bodies are recognising whistleblowers,” she says. “But here at home, we are still being silenced, suspended and threatened.”
She pauses, wipes her tears, and continues. “Whistleblowers’ lives matter. If nothing changes, more people will pay the same price.”
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