Illustrative image: Special adviser Ngwako Kgatla. (Photo: Supplied) | Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe. (Photo: OJ Koloti / Gallo Images) The Department of Social Development (DSD) confirmed on Wednesday morning that Ngwako Kgatla, special adviser to Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe, had been suspended with immediate effect.
The suspension follows the findings of the Public Service Commission (PSC), which investigated the irregular appointment of Kgatla’s niece Lesedi Mabiletja as chief of staff to Tolashe.
The PSC investigation was launched in response to Daily Maverick’s exposure of Mabiletja’s appointment as highly questionable.
The PSC preliminary report concluded that Kgatla was partially responsible for falsifying Mabiletja’s CV to make her appear qualified for a post for which she was manifestly unfit. It advised disciplinary action against Kgatla.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Becs-Employee-copy2.jpg "Illustrative image: Lesedi Mabiletja is the niece of Social Development Minister Nokuzola Tolashe’s special adviser, Ngwako Kgatla (right). (Photos: Supplied)")
The DSD statement said Kgatla’s suspension was intended “to afford the Department an opportunity to conduct a thorough investigation into the PSC findings”, with Kgatla receiving full pay in the interim and a disciplinary hearing process under way.
Daily Maverick asked the DSD why it appeared to be initiating an investigation into an already-concluded investigation by the PSC, rather than simply charging Kgatla based on the PSC’s findings and recommendations.
Department spokesperson Sandy Godlwana replied that the DSD first needed to conduct its own investigation to determine the exact disciplinary charges against Kgatla.
The suspension marks the first concrete consequence to befall Kgatla, who has been associated with several governance scandals at the department since Tolashe took office as minister of social development in July 2024 and brought Kgatla with her from her previous role as deputy minister in the Presidency for women, youth and persons with disability.
The appointment that started it all
Daily Maverick revealed that Mabiletja, who was 22 at the time, was appointed to a post at director level (salary level 13) requiring, at a minimum, an NQF 7 qualification and five years’ experience at middle or senior management level.
Mabiletja had a matric certificate and an NQF 6 diploma in Information Technology, together with work history amounting to a few months as a brand ambassador at Rosebank College in Polokwane and a cadetship at Meropa Casino’s IT enrichment programme. The PSC found that neither Rosebank College nor Meropa Casino could confirm the roles described on her CV.
The PSC’s provisional report, sent to Tolashe in March 2026, found that the appointment was irregularly made despite the department’s HR officials having flagged to the then acting director-general, Peter Netshipale, that Mabiletja did not meet the requirements. Netshipale approved her appointment regardless, signing both the submission and her letter of appointment, although he later told the PSC he suspected his electronic signature had been fraudulently used without his knowledge.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Portfolio-Committee-Social-Development-DG-Peter-Netshipale-DH-2179-copy.jpg "Social Development Director-General Peter Netshipale addresses the parliamentary committee on social development on Thursday, 9 October 2025. (Photo: David Harrison)")
The PSC took a dim view of that explanation, noting that the DSD’s IT systems require personal credentials to access the SmartGov platform on which the appointment was processed, and that officials receive direct notifications when documents await their attention. The PSC concluded that Netshipale had contravened the Public Service Regulations and the Public Finance Management Act.
Mabiletja herself committed fraud on multiple occasions throughout the process, the PSC found. When registering for the mandatory Nyukela certificate for entry into the Senior Management Service, she falsely indicated she held a Bachelor’s degree and had worked as a private secretary for five years. When completing her competency assessment, she described herself as having a postgraduate qualification and being currently employed as a private secretary at the DSD for three years. None of this was true.
The uncle’s role
What gave the scandal its particular texture was the trail back to Kgatla. The CV submitted to HR on Mabiletja’s behalf — a materially different document from the one Mabiletja had originally sent her uncle — reflected three years of experience in the office of the late deputy minister Hlengiwe Mkhize, providing assistance to the head of office.
This experience, fabricated wholesale, was the cornerstone of the motivation used to push her appointment through despite the qualification shortfall.
Daily Maverick reported in April that Mkhize’s own head of office, Lebogang Mothibe, who worked with the deputy minister from 2014 until her death from lung cancer in September 2021, said simply of Mabiletja: “I do not know this person.” Mkhize’s daughter Zinzi similarly had no recollection of her.
The PSC found no documentary proof that Kgatla had manipulated the CV himself, but its observations section noted that when Mabiletja submitted her CV to Kgatla, it contained no mention of the Mkhize experience.
By the time Kgatla forwarded the CV on for processing, that experience had appeared. The PSC advised Tolashe to consider disciplinary action against Kgatla for “incorrectly reflecting on Ms Mabiletja’s CV that she had three years’ Public Service experience as a volunteer in the Office of the DM [deputy minister]”.
The PSC also recommended disciplinary action against HR officials who approved the appointment despite knowing about the disqualifications, and against Netshipale for signing it off. Netshipale retired at the end of March.
Mabiletja resigned from the DSD in January 2026, seemingly without facing any disciplinary consequences despite having been suspended on full pay for months at that stage.
There will be concerns that Kgatla’s case could follow a similar pattern.
A pattern of protection
The suspension of Kgatla has been a long time coming.
As Daily Maverick has reported at length, Tolashe brought Kgatla with her from her previous role as deputy minister in the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, where he had already been the subject of disciplinary proceedings for allegedly receiving two government salaries simultaneously.
A disciplinary hearing was scheduled for December 2024; it did not go ahead. In October 2025, DSD Director-General Netshipale produced a memorandum arguing that the DSD had no legal authority to discipline Kgatla for conduct at his previous employer — a position that critics found legally questionable and convenient.
At Tolashe’s Parliament appearance on 6 May 2026, she told MPs that “disciplinary processes” relating to the PSC’s findings would be finalised after final submissions, due by 14 May, were made.
“We will act where we have been advised to,” she said.
The suspension, announced on the same day those submissions were due, suggests the department may now be moving more quickly than its track record would have led anyone to expect — though Tolashe will also be aware that she is currently under public scrutiny.
Whether the disciplinary hearing that follows for Kgatla will be any more durable than the one that evaporated in December 2024 remains to be seen. DM