Senzo scolding: What evidence leaders in parliament’s ad hoc committee on police corruption found

The evidence leaders of the ad hoc committee established to investigate allegations made by South African Police Service (Saps) KwaZulu-Natal commissioner, Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, have made adverse findings against suspended Police Minister, Senzo Mchunu.

The committee met on Thursday evening to receive a presentation of the draft report from the evidence leaders.

Advocate Norman Arendse read the report. It found that, based on his own evidence, Mchunu issued the 31 December directive to disband the political killings task team (PKTT) without consulting his colleagues.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Advocate Elaine Harrison, Deputy Police Ministers Cassel Mathale and Polly Boshielo, suspended National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola, and Mkhwanazi all previously told the committee that they learned about the disbandment on social media.

“The evidentiary record discloses a serious and multilayered institutional crisis. The central findings distilled from the testimony of 28 witnesses are that the 31 December 2024 directive disbanding the PKTT was issued without consultation with the national commissioner, the president, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the State Security Agency (SSA), or the civilian secretariat,” reads the report.

“It was transmitted to a subordinate officer rather than the national commissioner, while the national commissioner was on leave on the eve of a public holiday.”

Mchunu’s reasons

The report criticised Mchunu for providing extensive reasons for the PKTT’s disbandment only in parliament, not in the directive.

In his directive, Mchunu stated that the PKTT was disbanded because its continued existence was no longer necessary. He further said the PKTT did not add value to policing in South Africa.

Other reasons, which he revealed in parliament, included budgetary issues; letters of complaint from Mary de Haas; emails and text messages from former Saps official Patricia Mashale; media reports regarding the involvement of Crime Intelligence in the murder of Sindiso Magaqa; and another complaint from MP Fadiel Adams.

The report found that, during his testimony, Mchunu contradicted his own reasons for disbanding the PKTT.

“A credible evidentiary basis exists with the inference that the disbandment was influenced by the PKTT success in assisting the Gauteng Counter Intelligence Operation to unmask a criminal syndicate involving law enforcement officials and not by the operational or budgetary reasons advanced on 31 December.”

Immediately

Mchunu further ordered the “immediate” disbandment of the PKTT, sparking debate over the word “immediately”. While everyone else understood it to mean “now”, Mchunu said it was not so. However, the report found that there is no other meaning of the word “immediately”.

“Minister Mchunu, we conclude that on his own evidence, issued the directive using the word immediately, but was unable to reconcile his subsequent resistance to that meaning with the ordinary meaning of his own letter,” reads the report.

“He advanced reasons in evidence, not recorded in the directive, and derived from sources such as Mary De Haas and Patricia Mashale, whom the inspector general and the national commissioner told him were unreliable. He admitted instructing his chief of staff to record Mkhwanazi without consent, and he misrepresented to parliament the extent of presidential consultation on the directive.”

The evidence leaders left it to the committee to decide whether Mchunu was within his legal rights to disband the PKTT.

Ramaphosa

The committee further found that Mchunu misrepresented his discussion with President Cyril Ramaphosa on the disbandment of the PKTT.

“The president did not approve the disbandment, was not consulted and has taken constitutionally grounded steps in response. However, the evidence leaders noted systemic gaps in executive oversight, including no performance assessments of the minister of police during the seventh administration.

“The president did not sanction the disbandment. The response establishing the Madlanga Commission, placing the minister on special leave, and appointing an acting minister under Section 98 of the constitution was constitutionally grounded, though the evidence reveals a pattern of passive executive oversight in the policing portfolio that the committee may wish to address in its recommendations.”

The report recommended the continuation and capacitation of the PKTT, as well as the establishment of a similar team in Gauteng.