South Africa: How Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe Defied the President

8 April 2026
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
By Rebecca Davis

Since September 2025, Daily Maverick has documented governance failures at the Department of Social Development under Minister Sisisi Tolashe. A letter sent to Tolashe by President Cyril Ramaphosa in March reveals the most recent: Tolashe charged her own Director-General with misconduct and advertised for his replacement without the legal authority to do either.

Peter Netshipale's farewell event was held on 30 March 2026. Netshipale, the Director-General of the Department of Social Development (DSD), is 65 years old, and his one-year contract, approved by the Cabinet on 25 March 2025, had run its course.

By all accounts, the farewell was a cordial affair: the kind of send-off the public service reserves for departing senior officials who leave without scandal.

Yet Netshipale had spent the better part of six months facing disciplinary charges accusing him of gross dishonesty, dereliction of duty and of bringing the department into disrepute through negative media attention.

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With Netshipale's departure, the charges appear to have left with him - their legal validity having been quietly demolished by President Cyril Ramaphosa in a letter sent to Social Development Minister Sisisi Tolashe on 12 March 2026, the authenticity of which Daily Maverick has confirmed.

Signed by President Ramaphosa, the letter lays out the fact that Tolashe had no legal authority to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Netshipale and no legal authority to advertise his position - as the DSD did in January 2026.

Both actions, Ramaphosa wrote, required his delegation of powers under the Public Service Act. Neither had it.

DSD spokesperson Sandy...

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