After nine days of testimony at the Madlanga Commission into police corruption, it is becoming increasingly clear that sidelined Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has some difficult questions to answer.
Less than 24 hours after Police Minister Senzo Mchunu gave the order to disband the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT), on 31 December 2024, a civilian businessman from North West knew about it.
This was despite the fact that there does not appear to have been any public statement made about it at the time.
One day later, businessman Brown Mogotsi was in possession of the letter signed by Mchunu ordering the disbanding. And even more curiously, he was also aware of accurate details around the fate of the ongoing investigations, which could only have come from the very top ranks of police.
“As we speak, they are bringing all the dockets to [deputy police commissioner Shadrack] Sibiya,” Mogotsi told alleged criminal kingpin Vusimuzi Matlala via WhatsApp. We now know that he was correct.
For the first time since the Madlanga Commission began to sit, the commission is going through hard evidence – in the form of communications obtained from Matlala’s cellphones after he was arrested in May this year.
And thus far, they appear to be substantiating the sometimes outlandish-seeming claims made to the commission previously by the likes of KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and national police commissioner Fannie Masemola.
Communications would have been vetted
Commission secretary Jeremy Michaels told Daily Maverick on Tuesday that the commission couldn’t give details as to the due diligence process its investigators had used to verify the authenticity of the messages, but it is likely to have been thorough.
Evidence leader Adila Hassan has several times referenced a dossier of accompanying evidence given to commissioners in the way of metadata obtained from the WhatsApps, for instance.
On the basis of the WhatsApps introduced to the commission by sidelined crime intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo on Tuesday, it would appear virtually unequivocal that the shadowy Brown Mogotsi, who also served as an ANC fixer of sorts, had access to information from the very top echelon of police that he was feeding to alleged criminal Matlala.
Even classified information often leaks. The question is, however, who was leaking to Mogotsi?
Mogotsi was bent on presenting himself to Matlala as someone with access to Police Minister Senzo Mchunu. He sent Matlala screenshots of interactions with someone saved on his phone under the number “Senzo Mchunu”, which include records of Mogotsi placing WhatsApp calls to Mchunu in the week before the PKTT’s disbandment was announced by Mchunu.
If the commission’s investigators have established that these screenshots are legitimate reflections of communication with the real Senzo Mchunu, the messages still have not shown evidence of clear criminal conduct by Mchunu.
But at the very least, they would establish that Mchunu was in direct contact with a man who was simultaneously soliciting funds from an alleged criminal at the heart of a sprawling cartel.
Why would Mchunu be entertaining this company at all, as a police minister who needed to demonstrate the highest levels of personal probity?
It does not help Mchunu’s cause that he initially denied knowing Mogotsi at all.
Appearing before Parliament in March, he said: “I do not know this person.”
Almost four months later, Mchunu would release a statement admitting that he did, in fact, know Mogotsi – but as a “comrade” rather than an “associate”, an exceedingly opaque distinction.
Zikalala did this knowing his audit team had not probed allegations against Malaka — and despite briefings from the previous board that the Treasury had been tasked to do just that. Zikalala sent the letter nine days before the elections saw the ANC lose its majority and he lost his post. Mshengu signed off on Malaka’s appointment on 3 July 2024, the day new ministers, including Macpherson, were sworn in. Both Mshengu and Zikalala denied there was any connection between their respective actions of canning the Treasury probe, declaring Malaka cleared by the department, and getting her appointed before Macpherson took charge. Mshengu, whom Macpherson removed from the board, said: “You would also know that IDT is a state entity and its operations are not subject to changes in government. Therefore, the appointment of Ms Malaka as CEO had nothing to do with changes in government. In any event, no one knew what would be the outcomes of the national general elections.” Zikalala said the board had terminated the Treasury investigation of its own accord and that there was “no so-called ‘haste’ on my part” to appoint Malaka. He reiterated that he had ordered investigations after becoming minister and had paused the appointment “for a period of more than a year until there were legal procedures initiated against me as minister”.Another investigation
Zikalala also stressed that Malaka’s appointment was not the end of the road and that the governance, risk and compliance anti-corruption unit had in fact “commenced its deeper investigation” as recommended by the internal auditors. That probe only started last November, months after Zikalala was replaced as minister. The department confirmed that the investigation was concluded in mid-February, but was awaiting the director-general’s sign-off. Its terms of reference included “determining whether there was irregular, improper and/or criminal conduct by IDT official(s) and/or third parties”. AmaBhungane has submitted a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act for the canned Treasury investigation reports, and will do the same for the anti-corruption unit report.Who will pay?
Meanwhile, the costs of this debacle continue to mount. When Moepathutse filed its damages claim, the IDT responded with a special plea, claiming that the bid had been tailored to suit Moepathutse’s building and that Malaka had concluded the lease without board approval, which was required due to its value. The IDT asked the court to pause the damages suit it applied in order to review its own decision and void the lease. When the IDT finally filed the review in March 2024, the deponent to its founding affidavit was none other than Malaka — hopelessly conflicted. She put hardly any admissible evidence on the table and the outcome was predictably dire. In a judgment delivered on 16 May, acting judge S J Myburgh complained repeatedly that the IDT had provided no evidence that its decisions were improper. “The IDT has failed to show that the agreement concluded between itself and the respondent was tainted by any illegality. I thus find myself in agreement with the argument made by the respondent that this application is simply an attempt by the IDT to avoid liability in terms of the now cancelled agreement(s).” The court dismissed the IDT’s application with costs, and Moepathutse’s damages claim, which the IDT’s latest annual report says now stands at almost R14-million, is effectively irresistible, unless, perhaps, the IDT throws Malaka under the bus. The bills are coming. The question is, who will pay? DM
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