Whistleblower Tumiso Mphuthi: Targeted for exposing corruption

WHISTLEBLOWER Tumiso Mphuthi believes that the protected disclosures she has made have led to her being “targeted”.

The Construction Education and Training Authority (Ceta) supply chain management (SCM) official has been suspended for three years following her efforts to expose alleged corruption. She was honoured with the Blueprint for Free Speech Whistleblowing Prize for 2025. 

Mphuthi has raised allegations of corrupt practices at Ceta and made protected disclosures regarding what she believed was tender rigging.

Her journey started in 2018, “and every time I have done a protected disclosure I would be targeted," she told the Cape Times on Wednesday. 

“Nothing with my reporting done in 2018, 2019, 2021 and I did it in 2024. In all these four times I blew the whistle, I've been a target. After the second disclosure, I developed thick skin. I’ve done what I deem to be right. If you don't report it, you are as good as an accomplice. I refused to be that person, allowing the wrongdoing to continue,” she said. 

The allegations have previously been denied by Ceta leadership. Ceta did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. 

“The people responsible for the corruption I reported, they were protected and given promotion. As a whistleblower, you are then seen as a problem, seen as a stumbling block,” she said.  

Her remarks come as the country reels in shock following the killing of Marius van der Merwe, a crucial witness at the Madlanga Commission. He was shot dead outside his Brakpan home on Friday.

Van der Merwe, a security company owner, had implicated the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) in his testimony, alleging that they had been involved in the torture and murder of an unnamed man, and he was forced to dispose of the body.

Mphuti said her troubles all started with an instruction for her to do something irregular. 

“I got an instruction. (I was told) someone was supposed to undergo a disciplinary and a chairperson was supposed to be appointed. (The person) said to me they need a favour from me, ‘to appoint a company that will give us an outcome that we want’.”

This, she said, was the basis of her first protected disclosure concerning an alleged unlawful instruction but nothing came of it. 

Over the years she would pick up further issues like irregularities concerning tenders, make protected disclosures but nothing came of it, she said. 

Instead of having her allegations investigated, Mphuthi claims she was suspended and charged with the very same irregularities she had reported.

“I keep reporting, they get ignored. In 2023 they suspended me.” 

“I am making peace, no company in the public sector will hire me. They don't want whistleblowers, they want people that will assist in corrupt activities, something I will not do."

Cape Times