Testimony: Suspended Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu told parliament’s ad hoc committee probing police corruption a task team investigating political killings was intended to be temporary. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
Suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu has defended his controversial decision to disband a task team investigating political killings, arguing it was never a formal unit of the police service and was meant to operate temporarily.
On Thursday, Mchunu made his first public appearance before parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating police corruption, where he sought to clear his name after allegations of political interference levelled against him by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, initially at a 6 July media briefing.
“Everyone was aware that this was a task team. A unit would be deliberately established as part of the organogram of the police for a long period of time. Task teams are for a particular purpose and timeframe,” Mchunu said.
He told MPs that national police boss Fannie Masemola had withheld crucial evidence from the Madlanga commission, the judicial inquiry established by President Cyril Ramaphosa to probe the disbandment of the task team and broader allegations of political interference in the criminal justice system.
“Mine was to give effect to the work study outcomes,” said Mchunu, referring to a 2019 police work study that recommended that the task team be disbanded.
“There is just no way you are going to be successful on the ground because you are just piling people to the same task team.
“As soon as the mission is accomplished by a task team, officers are expected to return to their respective units and departments.”
Mchunu said that, after his appointment in June last year, he had gone to great lengths to understand the structure of the police force and had received a full briefing from his predecessor Bheki Cele and senior South African Police Service (SAPS) officials.
This, he said, contradicted the version of events presented by Mkhwanazi and Masemola, who told the commission, chaired by retired judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga, that Mchunu had not been briefed on the task team.
“I engaged myself in reports, studies and discussions regarding the police service,” said Mchunu.
His testimony came hours after news that Ramaphosa had suspended the inspector general of intelligence Imtiaz Fazel, the latest episode in the crisis engulfing South Africa’s law-enforcement and intelligence structures:
The presidency said Ramaphosa had suspended Fazel on Thursday, pending the outcome of an investigation by parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence into a complaint about his conduct.
The committee invoked section 7(4) of the Intelligence Services Act, which allows the president to suspend the inspector general while an inquiry is under way.
Fazel’s suspension came as both the Madlanga commission and parliament’s ad hoc committee exposed the turmoil in the police service, where intelligence operations, political directives and personal rivalries increasingly overlap.
Together, these developments paint a picture of an institution consumed by internal battles for power and plagued by blurred lines of accountability.
At the parliamentary inquiry, deputy national commissioner for crime detection Shadrack Sibiya accused Mkhwanazi and crime intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo of weaponising intelligence resources to consolidate control within the SAPS.
Sibiya told MPs Mkhwanazi and Khumalo had turned the political killings task team into an “elite” unit that operated outside normal accountability structures, consuming nearly R500 million a year, while limiting its operations to KwaZulu-Natal.
“We cannot really be fighting so hard to keep and maintain a very expensive political killing task team that is meant to actually take care of a very small pool of excellence within KZN. The whole country is not really taken care of,” Sibiya said.
The task team, established in 2018, has been credited with solving high-profile political assassinations but has now become the focal point of the factional rift between Mchunu, Mkhwanazi, Sibiya and Masemola.
Mkhwanazi publicly criticised Mchunu’s decision to disband the team, accusing Sibiya of carrying out Mchunu’s directive by removing 121 dockets from the task team — which were returned after Mkhwanazi’s July media briefing and the appointment of Firoz Cachalia as acting police minister.
Sibiya, who drafted the letter implementing Mchunu’s directive and removing the dockets, has claimed the controversy is being exploited as part of a “succession battle” for the national commissioner position.
“This has nothing to do with the 121 dockets and the disbandment political killing task team,” Sibiya told MPs this week. “According to me, it’s about the succession battle within the police.”
Crime intelligence has emerged as a recurring theme at both inquiries.
At the Madlanga commission, Khumalo presented WhatsApp messages allegedly showing North West businessman Brown Mogotsi assuring murder suspect Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala that Sibiya was involved in dismantling the task team.
Sibiya denied any connection to either man, saying he “doubts” the authenticity of the messages and urging that the person who retrieved them testify before the committee.
“This is a discussion between two people that does involve me,” he said.
Behind the exchanges lies a deeper question about the politicisation of intelligence in the SAPS — and whether surveillance and investigative powers are being used to settle personal scores.
Sibiya accused Khumalo and Mkhwanazi of controlling information flows and using intelligence to threaten other police officers.
Fazel’s suspension leaves a gap in the very oversight body designed to prevent such abuses. The inspector general’s office ensures the State Security Agency, defence intelligence and crime intelligence act within constitutional limits. Without its stabilising role institutional accountability could be further eroded.
The testimony before the Madlanga commission and the ad hoc committee reveal a police service paralysed by mistrust, competition, divided loyalties and leadership contestation.
Sibiya described a “weird arrangement” in which the political killings task team reported to both Mkhwanazi and Khumalo instead of the detectives division he leads. He argued the imbalance diverted resources from urgent community policing priorities in high-crime areas.
Mkhwanazi, in turn, has positioned himself as a whistleblower exposing interference from politicians and senior officers. He maintains that Mchunu and Sibiya undermined the task team’s work to protect a Gauteng drug cartel called the Big Five — a claim both men deny.
“General Mkhwanazi is playing the country and he’s playing a mind game with the country,” Sibiya said. “He knows how to play with words in such a way that the country gets moved.”