AGE OF ACCOUNTABILITY: Another blow to Tolashe’s legacy as sacked spokesperson wins R1.5m and job back

The Public Health and Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council has ruled that the dismissal of former Department of Social Development (DSD) chief director of communications Lumka Oliphant in October 2025 was “procedurally and substantively unfair”.

Arbitrator Suria van Wyk found that the department had failed to prove any of the five misconduct charges for which Oliphant was dismissed, and had circumvented its own disciplinary procedures.

The DSD has now been ordered to pay Oliphant R1,535.516.04 – the equivalent of 12 months’ backpay – in two instalments, with Oliphant due to report back to work in her old post on 1 November 2026.

Asked by Daily Maverick for comment on Tuesday, Oliphant responded with a social media post in which she thanked supporters and wrote: “I thought I’d be ready for this day, but I am not.” 

The ruling, handed down on 17 October, is the latest consequence of the turmoil at the Department of Social Development (DSD) under former minister Sisisi Tolashe, who was fired by President Cyril Ramaphosa in May following months of Daily Maverick investigations.

The findings directly contradict a statement issued by the DSD on 30 April, in which Tolashe termed Oliphant a “disgruntled former official” and insisted that she had been dismissed “following due process” after allegations of financial and administrative misconduct.

Oliphant’s reinstatement is likely to present a headache for Tolashe’s successor, Minister Dina Pule, because former KwaZulu-Natal South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) spokesperson Sandy Godlwana was appointed to Oliphant’s position in a permanent capacity in May.

The Mail & Guardian reported in July that the DSD had spent R670,590.50 on hotel accommodation for Godlwana while she was acting in the position between October 2025 and May 2026 prior to receiving permanent tenure. 

Godlwana did not respond to Daily Maverick’s request for comment on Tuesday.

A boxing challenge, outspoken defiance
and a rushed dismissal

Oliphant was suspended on 1 September 2025, shortly after a Sunday Times exposé of a R3-million trip to the UN in New York taken by department officials in March 2025. 

Oliphant maintained that she was targeted because Tolashe suspected her of leaking information about the trip, while the DSD said her suspension concerned alleged mismanagement of government programmes.

The arbitrator did not determine whether Oliphant was victimised for suspected whistleblowing.

The ruling records that after her suspension, Oliphant gave interviews and posted on social media criticising Tolashe and departmental leadership. The DSD claimed that Oliphant had “intimidated, and continued to intimidate, the Minister by inviting her to a boxing or fighting ring”.

Oliphant denied threatening to assault Tolashe, the ruling states.

“Her evidence was that she had said she was not afraid of the Minister, that the Minister should complete Grade 12, and that she was available in an open space,” it records.

“The general assertion that the Applicant invited the Minister to a fight at an open platform, without the production and contextualisation of the actual statement, does not establish the charge,” the arbitrator found.

The department also accused Oliphant of “gross insolence” for referring disparagingly to Tolashe’s level of schooling. 

Van Wyk disagreed, finding that “a reference to a public office-bearer’s publicly known educational qualifications, made in the course of public commentary on the handling of a senior official’s suspension, does not without more amount to gross insolence”.

Oliphant was seemingly unapologetic throughout. 

Asked whether she regretted taking departmental matters public, the ruling records that Oliphant replied that “there was nothing to be remorseful about”.

Even when the department’s lawyer asked whether she would again go public about conduct she considered unlawful if reinstated, Oliphant refused to commit herself to future silence, arguing that she did not know “what she would encounter in the Department”.

The speed of Oliphant’s dismissal proved particularly damaging to the DSD’s case. 

Former director-general Peter Netshipale justified bypassing an agreed independent disciplinary inquiry on the grounds that officials had to “make sure that we dismiss [Oliphant]” to “protect the state”. 

Oliphant received a finding of guilt on 17 October 2025, the day on which she was expecting to make submissions in mitigation. 

Her lawyers requested an extension at 3:16pm, but by 4:21pm, Netshipale had emailed them her dismissal letter.

“The evidence supports the inference that the invitation to make representations was not genuine and that the decision to dismiss had already been taken,” Van Wyk found.

The unravelling of Tolashe’s fiefdom

Oliphant’s reinstatement is the latest chapter in the unravelling of Tolashe’s administration, as the fallout from irregular appointments, disputed dismissals and questionable use of public funds continues months after the former minister’s removal from Cabinet.

A Public Service Commission (PSC) report finalised on 30 September into the employment of a food aide at Tolashe’s private home substantiated key elements of Daily Maverick’s April investigation into Tolashe’s state-funded nanny. 

The PSC found that Nomathamsanqa Khuhlane was indeed appointed on the DSD payroll as a departmental “food aide” but had in reality carried out childcare and domestic work at Tolashe’s private East London home.

Tolashe insisted to Parliament in May: “I can categorically state that [Khuhlane] was employed by the department at the official residence in Cape Town”. 

Tolashe claimed that Khuhlane subsequently moved to the Eastern Cape because of health problems and stayed with her daughter, Kanyisa. The PSC found that Khuhlane had never worked at the official residence, but had been employed at Tolashe’s private home throughout.

Salary grab

One of the most shocking aspects of the Daily Maverick investigation was the allegation by Khuhlane, backed by bank records, that she had been made to pay half her monthly DSD salary over to Tolashe’s daughter Kanyisa. The PSC report confirmed that Khuhlane had made bank transfers totalling R37,000 into an account alleged to belong to Kanyisa Tolashe, although the PSC could not independently verify the account’s ownership. 

Although Tolashe told Parliament that she was “not aware of” any such arrangement, the PSC recorded evidence that it was the minister herself who had given the instruction to staff to communicate this payment arrangement to Khuhlane.

The PSC did not investigate Tolashe’s personal conduct in this matter, which lay outside its jurisdiction, but referred the issue to Parliament. 

On 14 October, Parliament’s social development committee called for further accountability and an audit of the DSD’s HR processes. 

Irregular appointments

The PSC’s findings on the Khuhlane matter also implicated the same official who had overseen Oliphant’s dismissal, finding that Netshipale had approved Khuhlane’s irregular appointment.

Netshipale’s own appointment was also the subject of a damning forensic investigation. Findings by law firm Mketsu & Associates, presented to Parliament in June, rejected Tolashe’s explanation that Netshipale had received a five-year contract despite Cabinet approving only a one-year term because of a mere “clerical error”. Investigators instead found evidence of a deliberate administrative process behind the discrepancy.

The PSC, in findings finalised in June, separately confirmed irregularities exposed by Daily Maverick surrounding the appointment of 22-year-old Lesedi Mabiletja, an apparent niece of Tolashe’s special adviser Ngwako Kgatla, to senior positions for which she did not qualify. Mabiletja resigned in January before disciplinary proceedings were concluded.

Kgatla, implicated by the PSC in irregularities involving Mabiletja’s CV, was suspended on full pay on 13 May, the day before Tolashe’s removal. The outcome of his disciplinary process has not been publicly confirmed.

In July, the department said it was also initiating disciplinary action against senior HR practitioner Samuel Boshielo over Mabiletja’s appointment.

Tolashe’s former chief of staff Zanele Simmons, meanwhile, who was dismissed shortly before Oliphant in October 2025 after being accused of falsifying Mabiletja’s CV and having used Tolashe’s signature without permission, reached a confidential settlement with the DSD in June.

What remains, some five months after the former minister’s axing, is a department still contending with the legal and financial consequences of Tolashe’s reign. DM