CETA manager asks Parliament to probe ANC MP Teboho Letsie over Facebook comment on her suspension
Tumiso Mphuthi says the Higher Education committee chairperson discussed her disciplinary case publicly while it was still running, and wants the Registrar of Members' Interests to rule on whether oversight became interference.
A Construction Education and Training Authority manager has asked Parliament to investigate whether the ANC MP who chairs its higher education oversight committee crossed the line from scrutiny into interference in her disciplinary case, after he allegedly commented on it on Facebook while the process was still running.
Tumiso Mphuthi, CETA’s supply chain management manager, lodged the complaint with Parliament’s Registrar of Members’ Interests, Adv Anthea Gordon. It is dated October 11. Sunday World reported the complaint on October 18.
At the centre of it is a comment Mphuthi attributes to Teboho Letsie, the MP who chairs the portfolio committee on higher education, suggesting she “deserve[d] to be fired”. Mphuthi says the post went up while her disciplinary proceedings and any appeal were still subject to formal employment processes.
“I regard this statement as particularly serious because my disciplinary proceedings and/or appeal were still subject to formal employment processes,” she states in the affidavit.
She says she did not authorise any publication of information about her disciplinary case, and that the Facebook post led other users to identify her by name and job title while discussing her suspension and employment circumstances.
“I did not authorise the publication of disciplinary information on Facebook,” she says in the complaint.
Mphuthi wants Parliament to establish how Letsie obtained the information, whether he was justified in discussing her employment dispute in public, and whether his conduct met the ethical obligations of an MP and a committee chairperson. The complaint also questions his alleged correspondence with CETA about her employment, her disciplinary proceedings and her appeal.
“I am deeply concerned that Mr Letsie’s conduct may have gone beyond legitimate parliamentary oversight and may have amounted to inappropriate involvement in an individual employee’s disciplinary and appeal process,” she states.
Letsie has not answered the substance of the allegations. In a letter to Gordon dated October 15 he said he intends to cooperate but needs clarity first, and that the complaint does not identify the specific provisions of Parliament’s Code of Ethical Conduct he is alleged to have breached.
“This letter is written in the interests of fairness and efficient processing of the complaint. It is not a response to the complaint, and nothing in it is to be construed as an admission of any fact, allegation or contravention,” he wrote, reserving his rights to raise procedural and jurisdictional objections and any defences.
He has asked the registrar to specify which provisions of the code he is said to have contravened, to give details of the statements attributed to him, and to clarify whether the matter has been formally registered as a complaint or is being handled as a request for an investigation.
Letsie also points to discrepancies in the affidavit: it refers to a Facebook publication around July 30, while the annexure list identifies screenshots dated June 30. He says the affidavit paraphrases the comments attributed to him and refers to correspondence with CETA without identifying the specific communications, their dates or their contents.
He has asked for an extension until November 13 to file a formal response under oath, saying he needs time to take legal advice and prepare an affidavit.
Behind the complaint is a longer fight between Mphuthi and her employer. She says she raised alleged supply chain management and governance irregularities through CETA’s internal structures before escalating them to the responsible minister and to the parliamentary portfolio committee Letsie chairs. According to her affidavit, the committee acknowledged receipt of her report, but she believes nothing was done on the substance of what she raised.
Mphuthi was suspended in June 2023. The suspension was later lifted by administrator Oupa Nkoane and she returned to work in March 2026, with her disciplinary proceedings still not finally concluded.
The complaint now sits with the registrar, whose job is to assess members’ conduct against Parliament’s ethics code, not to rule on whether CETA handled its own disciplinary case correctly. Letsie’s requested deadline of November 13 is the next dated step.
