Suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu.
KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi told the Madlanga commission of inquiry that suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu disbanded a political killings task team in the province in a WhatsApp message and without receiving a formal briefing on its work.
Testifying on day one of the commission into police corruption chaired by retired judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga, Mkhwanazi also warned that South Africa’s justice system is at risk of collapse. The commission was established by President Cyril Ramaphosa after Mkhwanazi made explosive allegations in July regarding the disbandment of the political killings task team and criminal syndicates in the police.
Mchunu, who has denied any wrongdoing, was placed on special leave and Firoz Cachalia was appointed acting police minister.
The task team, established in 2018, was meant to tackle the wave of assassinations of politicians and traditional leaders in KwaZulu-Natal. It was formed after recommendations from the Moerane Commission of Inquiry, which investigated political violence in the province.
On Wednesday, Mkhwanazi testified that he received the directive to shut down the team in December 2024, not through official channels but in text and a letter sent on WhatsApp. He described the order as “irrational and irregular”.
Reading from the letter he received, Mkhwanazi quoted Mchunu as writing: “My observation in this regard, as indicated above is that further existence of this team is no longer required as is it adding any value to policing in South Africa. I therefore direct that the political killings task team be disestablished immediately.”
Mkhwanazi said the letter revealed the minister’s view that the unit had outlived its usefulness. But the provincial police commissioner said he disagreed with this assessment.
“I have displayed earlier today, also in the [affidavit] the work that the team has done, the success rate, the performance that influences the acts to be given to the team,” he said.
In July, Mkhwanazi told journalists that 121 case dockets had been taken from the task team in early 2025 to shield suspects. The dockets were returned to the task team on 28 August and the South African Police Service (SAPS) earlier this month said this had resulted in the arrest of suspects wanted in connection with the murder of whistleblower Xolani Ndlovu Ntombela.
On Wednesday Mkhwanazi said the task team has the highest success rate in the police service and was extended to the Eastern Cape as a result.
“So for a minister to reach this conclusion, worse because the minister has not received a formal briefing on the work that this team is doing … it was a wrong conclusion that the minister has reached, which is why it became a matter of concern.”
Madlanga asked whether the decision to disband the unit was a matter of policy or policing.
“In my opinion, views, and experience I have in the police, this is a letter that is operational, not policy,” Mkhwanazi responded, saying the directive spoke directly to operational work within SAPS.
“This is one team that has been successful out of the 11 teams that are running at national level, but it is the only team that receives this type of lead.”
Evidence leader Mahlape Sello pressed him on the potential consequences of shutting down the team, asking whether its disbandment would force all the dockets it handled to be distributed among individual investigators, diluting the inter-disciplinary approach that had made the unit effective.
Mkhwanazi confirmed this would have been the case. “It is my belief that, perhaps, as I had said in the public, in the very same month of January, that someone influenced the minister to do this,” he said.
He told the commission that he had made informal presentations to Mchunu about the problems faced by SAPS in KwaZulu-Natal. The police minister never requested a briefing from the task team before disbanding it, he added.
“One of the remarks I made in my presentation was to invite him to visit KZN so that he get to experience some of the operational challenges that we have as a province, especially because he’s a resident of the very same province,” he said.
Asked whether Mchunu had taken up this invitation to brief him on the task team’s work since his appointment in May 2024, Mkhwanazi replied: “We have never received an invitation at all.”
Mkhwanazi testified that he raised his concerns with deputy national commissioner for crime detection Shadrack Sibiya — who has also been suspended — urging him to establish why Mchunu had made such a drastic decision.
“In my view, it was an irrational and irregular [decision],” he said. “The decision was going to have a serious impact in terms of the investigation of crime and those cases that were before the team.”
He added that the public in KwaZulu-Natal — a province of more than 12.5 million people — would have held him responsible as provincial commissioner for any failures in addressing political killings.
“The consequence of a sudden stop of investigation was going to impact on us as the South African Police Service in the province of KwaZulu-Natal and myself as a person responsible for the work that needed to be done,” Mkhwanazi said.
When asked whether Sibiya had acted on his request to intervene, Mkhwanazi said: “Well, I did not hear from the deputy national commissioner … [he] never really came back to me to tell me what is the next course of action.”
Mkhwanazi detailed how he tried various avenues to reach Mchunu, including approaching the minister’s chief of staff and people outside of government who might have influence. Eventually he sent Mchunu a WhatsApp message directly.
“He acknowledged that, and he was to set up a meeting. But to date, that meeting never materialised,” Mkhwanazi said.
Failing that, he suggested that the deputy national commissioner escalate the matter to President Cyril Ramaphosa. “Because as a provincial commissioner, I can’t go directly to the president [and say] the executive authority, the minister, has taken a decision that seems to be contrary to what we are doing as the police.”
Mkhwanazi said he also reminded the deputy commissioner that the task team had been established after an interministerial process, meaning that oversight was shared by a group of ministers on behalf of the president.
Mkhwanazi said he created the task team during his brief stint as acting KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner in 2018, which was supported by Sibiya and presented to the interministerial committee.
“So it cannot be correct then that one minister takes a decision without being part of the collective. Or even so, the decision that is taken is an operational decision, whereas the IMC at the beginning were not … participants in the formation of the team,” he said.
Mkhwanazi said he eventually contacted Ian Cameron, the chairperson of parliament’s police portfolio committee, after concluding that “every door I’m knocking, nothing is happening”. He said he made arguments against the disbandment of the task team in the presence of Mchunu in parliament but did not receive a response.
According to Mkhwanazi, the task team was reduced in size and given a three-month budget for April to June 2025. Although he had indicated in his affidavit to the commission that the task team had been disbanded, he said he had received information that the team’s budget had been approved till March 2026.