Overstepping the mark: Senzo Mchunu, right, admitted that President Ramaphosa and police commissioner Fanie Masemola were not consulted about disbanding the unit. Photo: GCIS
Former police minister Bheki Cele this week said his successor, Senzo Mchunu, had no power to disband a task team investigating political killings without consulting the national commissioner or the presidency, in the latest explosive testimony that pointed to the disarray in South Africa’s criminal justice system.
“The [police] minister cannot establish or disestablish. So it still has to go through the national police commissioner for establishment and disestablishment,” Cele told parliament’s ad hoc committee probing allegations of corruption in policing and intelligence, which have implicated Mchunu and deputy national commissioner for crime detection Shadrack Sibiya.
The KwaZulu-Natal-based task team was formed in 2018 to investigate the assassinations of councillors, activists and politicians, which had become endemic in the province. Mchunu has been accused of disbanding the team because it was closing in on Gauteng-based drug cartels he has been linked with.
On Wednesday, Cele said the task team had briefed President Cyril Ramaphosa on progress made in combating politically related cases two months before the May 2024 general elections, while he was still police minister. Cele said he subsequently had a two-hour handover meeting with Mchunu.
Cele dismissed Mchunu’s claims that the task team was financially unsustainable, saying the costs were comparable with other major initiatives such as Operation Thunder, launched in the Western Cape in 2018, to tackle gang violence and the Operation Vala uMgodi crackdown on illegal mining.
“It’s not true that it is the only [task team] that’s operating and paying money for. Other operations have happened,” Cele told MPs.
His testimony threw new fuel onto a fire raging inside the South African Police Service as damning testimonies emerged at the ad hoc committee inquiry and the parallel Madlanga Commission established by Ramaphosa after KwaZulu-Natal commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi first made allegations of political interference against Mchunu. The police minister, who has been placed on special leave, denies any wrongdoing.
The commission, chaired by retired judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga, has heard evidence of senior police officials allegedly colluding with drug cartels, obstructing investigations, and tampering with case files.
This week, two anonymous police witnesses — identified only as Witness A and B — testified about the assassination of Armand Swart, an engineer who was mistaken for a whistleblower in a tender scandal at state entity Transnet.
Mkhwanazi and national police commissioner Fannie Masemola have told both the Madlanga commission and ad hoc committee that drug cartels responsible for Swart’s murder instigated Mchunu to disband the political killings task team.
Masemola told both inquiries that he received Mchunu’s letter in December last year to disband the task team while on leave, and was surprised by the urgency of the order and advocated for a phased-out approach.
It is believed that the arrest of murder suspects Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and Katiso Molefe — allegedly two of the five leaders of the ‘Big Five’ cartel — for Swart’s murder influenced the disbandment of the task team.
Crime Intelligence boss Dumisani Khumalo presented WhatsApp messages to the Madlanga commission, which showed exchanges between Matlala and Brown Mogotsi — a North West businessman believed to be Mchunu’s middleman.
Witness A and B, both part of the Gauteng organised crime unit handling the Swart case, told the commission about police interference during arrests, tampering with ballistics reports, the offering of “brown” envelopes — a reference to bribery money — as well as intimidation and threats from fellow officers.
Witness A said Matlala wrongly targeted Swart, who was not the whistleblower. Witness B testified about how the Johannesburg central police station had become a hostile environment after the investigation led to the arrest of police colleague Pule Tau and two hitmen for Swart’s murder. After a series of suspicious events — including invitations to parties with senior police officials, edited ballistics reports, unsubstantiated kidnapping charges, and road rage from police vehicles — both anonymous witnesses had to be relocated to safe houses.
Witness A accused Gauteng head of organised crime Richard Shibiri of interfering in the case at the behest of Sibiya. The witness told the Madlanga commission that when a helicopter belonging to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) attempted to interfere during the arrest of Molefe, the organised crime unit detained him as a “high profile” and “high risk” individual at Pretoria Central police station.
Witness A said information leaks to Matlala, and the visits he received from senior officials while in prison showed the influence he had.
Sibiya last week denied any involvement with drug cartels, telling the parliament committee that the ‘Big Five’ does not exist. Sibiya dismissed Mkhwanazi’s allegations as a “pre-emptive” strike in the succession battle for the position of national police commissioner after Masemola’s tenure.
This week, Mchunu distanced himself from Sibiya’s controversial removal of 121 case dockets from the political killings task team, telling the committee that his directive to disband the unit made no mention of how the dockets should be handled.
Mchunu’s testimony contradicted Sibiya’s own evidence that he removed the dockets because he “could not disobey an order from the minister”. Mchunu admitted that Ramaphosa and Masemola were not consulted about disbanding the unit.
Mkhwanazi told both inquiries that crime intelligence had not been reformed since the 2011 slush fund case of former crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli.
He said the police service faced the “worst kind of political interference” during that time.Adding to the murk in policing and intelligence, Ramaphosa recently suspended Inspector-General of Intelligence, Imtiaz Fazel, after allegations of misconduct lodged at parliament’s joint standing committee on justice.