KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi
KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi says some police officers who were once part of the task team on political killings but are now serving prison sentences for corruption are feeding information to members of parliament.
Mkhwanazi told parliament’s ad hoc committee probing corruption in the criminal justice system that several police officers who served in the task team had since been arrested for corruption and other crimes.
“Quite a number of them today are in prison. As we engage in giving this evidence with this ad hoc committee, you’ll be privy that some of the members arrested are in prison,” he said.
“Some of them are now in league with some of the honourable members in this parliament. And that they’re feeding them with information.”
The ad hoc committee stalled briefly on Tuesday after members of parliament requested that Mkhwanazi submit an original statement different from the one sent to the Madlanga commission, which is conducting its own inquiry.
Mkhwanazi’s parliamentary testimony expands on what has already emerged before the Madlanga commission. His evidence implicated senior figures — including suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu and deputy commissioner Shadrack Sibiya — in efforts to undermine the task team’s work
President Cyril Ramaphosa established the commission after Mkhwanazi made allegations of criminality and political interference in the criminal justice system during a media briefing in July.
Mchunu has denied any wrongdoing and dismissed Mkhwanazi’s allegations as “wild”. The commission has since summoned Mchunu’s associate Brown Mokgotsi to respond to allegations that he was a middleman between criminal syndicates and the police minister.
During his testimony at the Madlanga commission — which is currently on a break until next week — Mkhwanazi implicated MPs, including National Coloured Congress leader Fadiel Adams and the Democratic Alliance’s Dianne Kohler-Barnard, in the use of confidential information to incite discord within crime intelligence at the behest of politicians.
Testifying before the ad hoc committee on Tuesday, Mkhwanazi outlined how the political killings task team became a target of criminal infiltration — and why rotation within its ranks was necessary.
Mkhwanazi explained how the task team was established after a visit by Ramaphosa in May 2018, following a spike in political assassinations in KwaZulu-Natal. Its formation was in response to growing national concern that politically motivated murders were threatening democratic governance.
Mkhwanazi said the team operated at a provincial level but drew funding from the national police budget and expertise from across the country.
“The team was made out of different expertise from the different parts of our organisation, which were drawn from different parts of our country as they organised right across where we need to get the expertise to come and assist those expertise were then invited from different station, different units in the rest of the republic, to come and assist the team,” he said.
The team included detectives, forensic experts, and analysts, allowing a multidisciplinary approach to tackling complex political killings.
“Before, it was only detectives alone that were working in dealing with those cases. Now, when this team was formed, it had forensic experts in it. It had analysts in it,” Mkhwanazi said.
He said that although not all members could be rotated, measures were taken to ensure accountability.
“It’s not easy to rotate a detective when he’s putting on a docket because he’s an independent officer. But we make sure he works with a group of other members around him or her, so that we prevent any involvement in corruption, as it were.”
Mkhwanazi and national commissioner Fannie Masemola previously told the Madlanga commission that Mchunu’s directive to disband the task team in December 2024 was “irrational” and unlawful. They said the team was investigating cartel-linked murder suspects Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and Katiso Molefe when it was abruptly shut down.