By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Construction Education Training Authority (CETA) has dismissed reports of mismanagement that have been made against the public entity.
This follows an article on Sunday Times that Minister of Higher Education and Training Nobuhle has ignored claims of corruption at Ceta, despite documented evidence submitted by a whistleblower.
Nkabane is being accused of covering for Ceta CEO Malusi Shezi who a former employee believes is involved in tender rigging.
Tumisho Mphuthi, a whistleblower, told the publication that she had flagged tender irregularities with Nkabane’s office, the Ceta board and a parliamentary portfolio committee, but no action has been taken.
Her documents allegedly show that multi-million-rand tenders were granted to companies that did not submit bids.
After raising her concerns, Mphuthi was suspended and accused of 43 instances of misconduct.
In a statement Ceta said, “It is falsehood, a misrepresentation and misleading the public that there has been irregularities or corruption ignored at CETA. The CETA investigated all claims of irregularities to which it has acted in applying consequence management to various officials, including one being quoted by the publication.”
“CETA is currently applying a ruling by the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) handed on the 27th of May 2025, which states that CETA can proceed with a disciplinary hearing against the employee.
“The employee sought to halt disciplinary proceedings on the basis that some of the charges emanated from an alleged disclosure made under the Protected Disclosure Act of 2000, thereby disguising themselves as a whistleblower when they were not. The employee wanted all charges, including those not related to protected disclosure, to be dropped, read the statement.”
“The employee faces serious charges, including the violation and breach of Supply Chain Management (SCM) policies which led to CETA incurring irregular expenditure, the violation of contract management policies, alleged leaking of CETA confidential information and bringing the CETA and the CEO name into disrepute, misrepresentation, fraud and forgery, including that of allegedly forging the CEO’s signature as well as the violation of CETA’s Code of Conduct and Ethics.
“The disclosures in question were made in August 2019, three months after a forensic investigation report implicating the same official and others was issued to the CETA Board in May 2019.
“The employee had concealed information about irregularities then afterwards claimed whistleblowing on what could have been brought to light years earlier. The official is at the centre of those implicated in the findings by the forensic report.
“In its ruling, the CCMA has found that “…the disclosures in their entirety, given the timing in which they were made, were not made sincerely, honestly and in good faith and thus cannot be regarded as protected disclosures to be protected against occupational detriment. The employee must face all charges in the disciplinary hearing and provide her defences accordingly.”
CETA awaits the employee to present themselves to a hearing chaired by an independent chairperson to present her case.
“The part of the story that CETA would like to reject with utter contempt and dismay is the repeated claims of tender irregularities and board nomination manipulations, both of which allegedly involve CETA CEO Malusi Shezi, concluded the statement.
This adds to Nkabane shaky tenure a minister after she was accused of lying to parliament about Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) appointments.