The NdB Sunday Show: Prof Theo Venter - Mkhwanazi, Mchunu, Masemola, Matlala, Maumela, Mogotsi, Mofele & Sibiya

In the latest edition of the NdB Sunday Show, Political and Policy Analyst Professor Theo Venter tells Chris Steyn why former Police Minister Senzo Mchunu’s position is “fatal”; where things went “very wrong” for suspended Deputy National Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya accused of massive corruption by tenderpreneur “Cat Matlala”; why KZN National Commissioner General Nlhanhla Mkhwanazi continues to impress; why President Cyril Ramaphosa - accused of blocking further investigations into health tenders linked to Thembisa Hospital looting kingpin Hangwani Maumela (his nephew by previous marriage) - is a good diplomat, but a bad politician; how State Capture is still continuing; why former President Thabo Mbeki maintains that there are still Apartheid spies high up in African National Congress (ANC) leadership; and why it has taken almost 60 years for a court to find that former Nobel Prize laureate, Chief Albert Luthuli, was not killed by a freight train but was beaten to death by the Security Branch. “…what needs to happen in the police is we need to get some guys that we can trust and that is absolutely what you see, is what you get - and I think Mkhwanazi is definitely one of them,” Professor Venter says..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here:.Listen here:.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:02.771)It is the 2nd of November 2025 and you are on The Sunday Show with me, Chris Steyn, The NDB Sunday Show with me, Chris Steyn, and political analyst, Professor Theo Venter. Welcome, Professor. Theo Venter (00:19.297)My pleasure. Chris Steyn (00:21.223)May we start with the hot topic of the Madlanga Commission, particularly the evidence of Witness C. telling the commission that Tenderpreneur Cat Matlala had post his arrest confessed to paying millions to suspended Deputy National Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya. Theo Venter (00:49.25)Yeah, let me say tongue in cheek. One must not criticise all the potholes in South Africa every day because this one pothole brought about the stopping of a motorcade that was speeding, and so the police could get hold of Matlala. That to me was a funny part of this whole event. They had this...whether they were chasing them or just following them, that wasn't clear from the evidence of B and C, C, anonymous C. But in any case, he wanted to talk to them. And it seems to me that general discussion, and it is fascinating that he allowed them to tape what they were saying on a phone with his approval. That means whatever he said on that...tape is fairly admissible in court because it's with his approval and with his full knowledge. And it seems to me he knew that he was in trouble of some kind and this is the time to spill the beans to a junior kind of police official. Because in my understanding of the status of A, B and C is that theyare just detectives in the police. And of course then he started spilling the beans and as I listened to the evidence not only implicating Sibiya but also implicating the minister - and Brown Mogotsi’'s name came up again and so on and so on. It was clear to me on Thursday this week that I think Mr. Mchunu, the best way for Mr. Mchunu to deal with this situation is to resign and maybe negotiate for an ambassadorial post some way. There are a few empty posts at the moment as we know. But I think politically he has had it. And I think Shadrach Sibiya…in the beginning of the Madlanga Commission and the Ad Hoc, I was kind of ambivalent on Sibiya because there was the… Theo Venter (03:13.282)…Mkhwanazi allegations and there was the Masemola almost confirmation of those allegations, and then Sibiya came with a different story, and to me elements of that different story made sense kind of, but I think with the evidence that we got from from C - and it seems to me that money got to Sibiya and that Sibiya… and a few other cases also outside of Madlanga shows that Sibiya is probably somebody with more trouble than not. And now the important element of the Madlanga Commission, if you look at its mandate, its mandate lists a number of things that it must investigate and make recommendations. And one of it is the employability of senior members of the police. In other words, they may recommend that the President fire A, B or C. So they've got fairly wide ranging powers and I think they'll make those recommendations definitely. And what is nice to listen to the Ad Hoc Commission in Parliament versus the parallel development in the Madlanga Commission, the Madlanga Commission is doing things very commission-like, very organised, and the legality and how it is done and the questions being asked is straightforward. You can see where they're going. In Parliament, it is a little bit of a political…, in a sense, because every political party is asking whatever they want to. Sometimes you have this single member that is making it a case about themselves and so on. But very important issues are coming from Parliament, especially on oversight and on authority and these kind of things Chris Steyn (05:43.401)And on the heels of this evidence, we had fugitive Prophet Shepherd Bushiri, making claims that up to 12 million was being extorted from him by corrupt Hawks. And he also implicated a General Sibiya. He said they wanted increasing amounts for his protection and for his family to remain in South Africa - and the Malawi court has now blocked his extradition. Theo Venter (06:19.606)Yes, yes, that extradition was at first allowed at a lower level, lower court, but the higher court in Malawi has stopped it. So Bushiri is now free to speak. And I guess on a totally different note, Floyd Shivambu can now visit him in a legal way without being fired. Well, he won't be fired from his own party, but that was an interesting link to Bushiri. Yes, I think his claims...and how he said it sounded to me like there can be some truth to it because they referring to the farm, the farm north of Hammanskraall. Now, I’m not sure whether it's on that extended game lodge where there's a lot of lodges called Dinokeng. It may be there. And the other thing which was...fascinating to me this week was that Shadrack Sibiya, it seems to me, was very much involved in the taxi industry and this corrupt network of taxi industry with …as the big mafia boss. And when he died, basically went to Matlala for the same kind of, you keep my hands clean and I will keep your hands clean, or you keep my hands…and I'll keep your hands clean. And we also know, and I think this is what we can expect in future happening, that these killing squads and the method that they're following, same firearm, different cases and these kind of things, that's typical of the hit squads in the taxi industry and we know that because there has been task teams, like the Political Killings Task Team, there has been a similar task team on taxi industry and taxi violence. And they found these kind of things. It is in the taxi industry, especially long distance taxi industrie. It is a war out there. And it is actually tragic that on the one hand, the police is trying to curb the taxi violence. Theo Venter (08:44.78)Because it emerges anywhere and anyplace. This week, while this commission was ongoing, two taxi bosses were killed, I think, Pretoria at a taxi rank somewhere, Garankuwa. So it's an ongoing thing. And when you look at these things, the difficulty we have… and can I just jump back to one of the evidence that we got this week from the guys working at Forensics? And it is...we've got the skills and we've got the equipment to link a cartridge case to a firearm. And we've got the skills and the methods to link a bullet to a specific barrel. And we can link the bullet to the cartridge case. And we can link all those things to a firearm. But unless you've got evidence that that firearm was in the hands of somebody, in other words, you need proof that whoever killed Mr. X or Mr. Y, he must have had that firearm in his possession or he must have used it, then you're dead in the water. You can have all of these cases. But if you don't have an immediate kind of tracing of that firearm. And in terms of police policy, standing operating procedures, you need to get that firearm within 48 hours. Otherwise, whatever DNA sits on that firearm or fingerprints or whatever, has lost its integrity. You can't really use it. So there's a lot of things happening. But if you look at very, very clear-cut investigations, what to me came out of all these evidence apart from the stuff that you asked about Shadrack Sibiya, is that we are completely under-equipped in terms of forensics and our forensics laboratories and to train people to do the work quickly. It was fascinating. It was so fascinating that the judge asked this one guy, it was a captain, with a rank of captain, that was working for the PKTT. He said he received the evidence… Theo Venter (11:06.216)…and he compared the evidence, shells, cartridge shells, and then he wrote a report. So the judge said to him, but I see you received, let's say, the third of the month, and your report is dated the third of the month, so you did it in one day. He said, yes, sir. He said, now what's the average time that the police take for evidence and the investigation? He said, 30 days. He said, you did it in one day. Her said, yes, Sir. I'm focused, I can do it in one day. And we've got a policy, PKTT, Mkhwanazi, we've got a policy that you must deal with it in three days. And that means if you've got a firearm and you can deal with it in day one or within three days, then the integrity of the evidence on that firearm is still intact. But there's a very important lesson that some things are happening in the right way and a lot of things are not happening at all - and that applies to DNA samples, it applies to other firearms and it's just fascinating how a single event, the killing of a tragic wrong guy, Armandt Swart, led to these things and then a pothole brought all of these things together. Fascinating..Read more:.NdB Sunday Show: Rory Steyn “Radical courage” & “more Mkhwanazis” can root out cop rot.Chris Steyn (12:28.349)Because so many people must have known, I mean, for a very, very long time, allegations have been made to me personally, that General Sibiya is the fairy godfather of the underworld in Tshwane I have asked him repeatedly for an interview via Mr. Paul O’Sullivan - even prior to the allegations being made at that press conference in KZN and subsequently. I've been told he will give me an interview after he's testified. Let's see. Theo Venter (13:03.768)Well, just in response to that, my knowledge about O'Sullivan is very limited. All I know is that he pitched at a very high level…when that case was going on with the previous national commissioner or the one before that got caught with the... What was his name? It will come back right now. But what astonished me, I had, I must admit, I had a soft spot for Shadrack Sibiya. And it comes from where I met him. I met him in Pretoria at a…. lodge. It is now closed down, but it was a meeting place where we...met once a month. A lot of us political commentators, economic guys…A lot of us came once a month and then we met because when you do political commentary your problem is you are doing commentary and people respond to you, but commentators need to talk to each other as well to share information and to just develop your network. So that's what we did once a month. There was a lot of good food and some very quality wine involved as well. But it is at Lariba where I met Robert McBride, where I met Shadrack Sibiya, where I met a lot of these guys that were then thrown under the bus by Mdluli - and it was the Zuma time. And Shadrack lost his job at that stage. And he was running around looking at things. I think that was the time when he got employed in Johannesburg, when he was that part of his time. And when he returned to SAPS due to a court case that he won, and the court kind of instructed the police, you must go back. I think... Theo Venter (15:28.542)…what happened to Sibiya in that off years, his network expanded and I think that is where things went very wrong for him. Although he's claiming that this whole case is about people wanting to deny him to become the head of the Hawks, I think it's far more than that. There's a lot of people looking for jobs higher up and the fascinating part is both himself and Mkhwanazi, one is 57 the other one is 58. The police retirement age is 60 so they've got a year or two either to get promoted to the rank of or the position of National Commissioner because once if you're 59 they can appoint you for a period, but once you reach the age of 60 it becomes very difficult to deal with all these kind of limitations on age and this and that and the other. And I think a lot of these things had to do also with competition because we know Fannie Masemola's term is also ending sometime next year, I think. So there's really a lot of competition for that top job in the police. Chris Steyn (16:50.142)But more than competition, if the allegations about the corruption are true, then there is a lot to cover up. Theo Venter (17:00.218)Yes, well, we've seen this with previous police commissioners. this is a... I mean, if we go back in the history of the police, the last guy that served out his term was basically Commissioner Fivaz. And after that…most of them left their job wit the tail between the legs. In business schools where I'm involved, we love quotes. It's part of the business school design is to have some sexy quotes in teaching. And of all those quotes, only one has developed an enduring validity in my case, and that is the bottleneck is always on top. And if you look at the police, it applies absolutely. If the bottleneck on top does all these things which the police lower down are completely aware of, then it actually gives license to the guys lower down to do exactly the same. And what needs to happen in the police is we need to get some guys that we can trust and that is absolutely what you see is what you get - and I think Mkhwanazi is definitely one of them. If I look at his history, I'm a little worried about his position regarding the media. I'm a little worried about what he said about social media. But within a context, I can understand what he said. But it's clear to me that he is somebody that is looking at things, it's either right or wrong. It's black or it's white. Now there's use and it's useful sometimes when you've got a system like the current police force where anything goes. And in this case, it starts really at the top. Because what is it that we've seen at the top? We've seen at the top where Mchunu sat in his rondawel wherever that rondawel is, and he decided to stop the PKTT. Theo Venter (19:25.762)We now know that he did not consult any one of his two deputies, which I mean is the beginning of stupidity. If you're a minister and you really want to restructure on your own, you would at least consult. That is what smart guys do. They consult because you don't have all the knowledge. And sometimes when you think in your rondawel, and the thing about a rondawel is it's round. There's no corners. They can't put you in a corner, you’re running around in circles… And that's what Mchunu did, and he in that instruction of his and the way in which Sibiya executed that instruction, the missing link in this whole press is the role of Fannie Masemola, and I think it was Glynis Breitenbach that said to him but Sir you could have told the Police Minister you are of line, you could have told the Police Minister, Sir, in terms of legislation and in terms of how things are organised, you are now encroaching on what is my job, the operational management of the police, the day-to-day business of the police. Who are you to advise or to tell me to close down the PKTT, something that is working quite well? I'm going to stop at working quite well because I want to return to that. And then, of course, everything that we're hearing up to now. The difficulty I have with Fannie Masemoloa is what he did is not unique. It's happening all over government, where ministers get too deep into the administration and administrators get too deep into politics. And this is, of course, the remnants and the results of one party being in power for 30 years. When you have the amount of power that the ANC had over the last 30 years, in political science proper we call it a dominant one-party system. It means that there are regular elections, there are opposition parties, but one party… Theo Venter (21:50.726)…usually wins and it's not a unique situation….We still have it in the United States, in certain states. It will always be a democratic government. In certain Northern states in the US, it will always be Republican. Those are dominant party states and when that happens, as soon as you take control, over time you develop a bureaucracy or a civil service under you that over time becomes more and more loyal to that ruling party. And over time, 30 years, obviously your top decision makers in the civil service will be either loyal to the ANC or will be members of the ANC, depending on where you draw the line. And then if a minister comes down to you after he sat in his rondawel and he did some calculations, the right thing to do is, Sir, I can't do this. But Fannie Masemola said, I will look at it. And he went down to his people in terms of his own evidence and he said, well, this is the instruction, but I think we can maybe over time involve it. So he didn't, he did not give the minister a clear no. Theo Venter (23:18.722)He gave the minister maybe. And then to his own people he said, maybe not. And we see that in many departments where there's an instruction and your civil servants don't necessarily execute that. Theo Venter (23:47.678)You must now ask yourself now, remember the PKTT is a task team that sits in the police under this time under the leadership of Mkhwanazi in KZN, but since crime is usually network related, some of their work started happening in Vereeniging or Gauteng or wherever and some of the work is in the Eastern Cape. Why do you need a task team? This is now an objective question. If you have a division of the police called the Directorate of Priority Crimes or the Hawks, what went wrong in the police? Now, it seems to me it is all about resources. The police, the normal police, Public Order Policing and so on, are very poorly equipped in terms of resources… We've got some very good policemen, but they don't have buckets, don't have fuel, they don't have this, they don't have that. Then you've got the Hawks. Previously, the Scorpions, they apparently are better equipped. They've got faster cars, they've got more petrol, and they've got more resources. And then you've got a task team. With a task team, you've got a ring-fenced budget. You submit a programme, the programme is then funded and within that funding model you have got a lot of versatility and a lot of flexibility to arrange things. That's why task teams are sometimes a far better mechanism to deal with crimes. If you want to for instance, say you want to declare so-called farm murders a priority crime, Theo Venter (25:47.21)…nothing would happen because it's too widespread. It's all over the country and it is probably not going to work. So that claim by people, let's make it a priority crime, I don't think is going to work. But if you've got something that is pinpointed, like the killings in KZN, and I mean in the beginning of 1994, in the first two terms of Popo Molefe as Premier in Northwest, I was very close to government at that stage because we were part of an academic team between Stellenbosch, Potchefstroom, UNISA and Tuks that helped train the new MECs and the premiers. So we had meetings with them every month where training took place. It was a project that was, I think, funded by the European Union in the early days. At one point, Popo Molefe called me, and he said to me I must assist because the political killings in KwaZulu-Natal, this is now 95, 96, 97, they all lead to Toska in the, in the Northwest province. What happened at Toska? Apart from being almost Kalahari and apart from being a very good hunting area and some good cattle farms, they're...where people placed that came back from the Angolan War, the FNLA, that we incorporated into the South African Defence Force, but we didn't know what to do with it. And then after the war, the promise was kept, they came back to South Africa, and we parked them there at an old asbestos mine, not far from Toska. The only thing they knew at that stage what to do was to kill people because they were mercenaries in one form or another. And the taxi industry utilized them traveling from Toska on a Thursday and then on a Saturday you'll have the several killings of whatever kind and then on Monday these guys will be back in Toska and there's no trace. So we've had this before and we've seen this before. So a task team works best in that kind of...Read more:.Juanita Du Preez: Sibiya and Mchunu - The “Cat” is out of the bag.Theo Venter (28:12.854)…of situation. But this is something where the Madlanga Commission and I think Parliament through the Ad Hoc will have to deal with in a very specific way. Hopefully recommendations that can be implemented. Chris Steyn (28:29.469)Now, some people have remarked on the timing of the Minister's decision, following members of that team being involved in the arrest of alleged murder mastermind and alleged friend of the minister, TK Molefe. Theo Venter (28:49.484)Yeah, well, you can add Matlala to it as well. I wasn't impressed by the Minister's way in which he dealt with these issues in front of the Ad Hoc Committee. Him as well as his one deputy, they were trying to circumvent questions. They were trying to play smart. They were trying to…. So I would like to see what he's going to do when he's at Madlanga where the questions are far more direct and the judge, it seems to me, Madlanga is very, very clearly focused on what he wants to know and how he would like to know it. And two or three people already had to make apologies for...especially this one guy from the Hawks this week was it Brigadier Kleintjije, and that obviously there was a problem there, and this Captain Kruger that had to go and find out what's going on - and and so it seems to me there again the challenge is whether the PKTT is at Molefe's house or the Hawks, doesn't matter because they're both part of the police. But it seems to me there's a big competition, territorial competition almost between these things. And I think part of it is that. But I think you're quite right. The timing here is of the essence. And the timing tells me, with the intervention of somebody like Brown Mogotsi, which is somebody well known in Northwest, but he's a low-level player in politics in the province. He's not the big. How he and the minister got so close and it now seems to me from several other sources that this thing that was claimed that eight people were sent to the ANC's January 8th conference, costs were paid and this seems to me far closer to the truth. Theo Venter (31:15.256)Now I know some newspaper outlets tried to intervene or to interview all of these things and the one guy said well he was just so surprised that he got this all costs paid trip. The other one said well no this usually happens. So everybody gave a different answer but the question is yes I am of the opinion that Mchunua definitely made a few mistakes here. And the mistake goes much further. It implicates President Ramaphosa, because we know that Mchunu is very close to the President. As a matter of fact, almost his party agent, the man that runs his campaigns, that was very close to the CR17 situation. I have been under the impression that his premiership in KwaZulu-Natal was a fairly successful one and that he acted okay as Minister of Water Affairs, at least that dam in Clanwilliam is now being built after 10 years of not getting the thing off the ground. So he had a few things going for him. So this came as a shock, but we were warned ahead of time. We were warned that the Zondo Commission is taking a look at State Capture. It is a focus on a specific part of the ANC. Let's call it the Zuma faction. But State Capture in a different form or networks is still continuing. We saw that in COVID and with this case coming out, I think we can still see it going on. The ANC is now part of, I would call it, a kind of a triangle of crime, because you've got on the one corner of this triangle the politicians. You've got on the other corner of this triangle the police. And you've got on the third corner of this triangle these crime networks. The crime networks consisting out of tenderpreneurs and the taxi industry. Theo Venter (33:43.476)And we know, and we've said it several times already, that you will not stop corruption until you stop corruption at the lowest level. In other words, if you go down to a local municipality and you see who gets the tenders, who can transport water, and the ANC makes money out of that, not only for them individually, but for the party. Theo Venter (34:12.59)So the party becomes part of this crime, this triangle of crime. It actually sits in the middle. It facilitates this relationship. And the police on this side must now be kept in a situation where they don't make things difficult. And there you can tick Sibiya, but you can't tick Mkhwanazi. I mean, it was impressive a day or two ago when Mkhwanazi spoke to police and to traffic people at a passing out parade where he said, nobody in this coming Christmas season will take a bribe. And if somebody offers you a hundred rand, when you want to give him a ticket, you take this man in custody. Nobody takes a bribe, not on my watch. That's the kind of message that we must get, but very few has got the guts that Mkhwanazi has. Chris Steyn (35:12.659)Well, President Cyril Ramaphosa has often been accused of being spineless or being a man who walks next to his shoes and the Democratic Alliance is now accusing him of covering for his nephew by marriage, the Thembisa Hospital looting kingpin Hungwani Maumela. And somehow investigations are not going forward… Chris Steyn (35:41.809)…involving more health contracts. Now, this is a man whose assets have been confiscated, but he walks free. And it's very hard for people to explain that. Can you? Theo Venter (35:53.336)Well, you see, the Hawks has got this unique thing that developed through the Scorpions, and that's the Asset Forfeiture Unit. They have that instrument, which the police don't have, and they've used that in the Maumela case. But we’ve known the president now for a few years, and we know that he acts only when ...it is absolutely necessary and when he has made sure that his bases are covered. I don't think, I mean the Phala Phala thing is still out there and the question that one would ask is okay, we will never really know, well that's the current case, what happened there and where the money came from and how it is that there was a transaction, the buffaloes are still on the farm, but the crooks that took the money, the low-level guys…, they are currently in court. So it's very awkward situation. The understanding is that Ramaphosa wanted to resign…when Phala Phala; it was in December, two or three years ago, he threatened to resign due to this case. And I think the fact that the ANC convinced him to stay provides him with a kind of a guarantee. But I think where we are now and several other situations with a GNU that is on very loose ground is making things for Ramaphosa very, very difficult. Sunday Times is speculating about all kinds of meetings… We know the ANC's trajectory is a downward slope. It's not a renewal slope. It's not an up swing of support. We know already by now that the local government elections will be very difficult for the ANC to make the same kind of victories that they have in previous elections. And all of these things are coming down on the president…. Theo Venter (38:16.258)…that takes a very long time to decide. And I think on this case, more action must be forthcoming. Now, I'm expecting the Hawks that is currently looking at it…remember they made available that document on corruption at Thembis, where names were mentioned, which means the investigations are far advanced. So I'm of the opinion that we may just see some things happening because when the parliamentary process started and when Madlanga started, suddenly we saw a few arrests. So it's happening and I hope this thing brings about a level of urgency that is needed. I'm just worried about the… Theo Venter (39:14.126)…collective damage that is happening. And the difficulty of, if we want to simplify it by saying, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Because sometimes, if you listen to Mkhwanazi, he can do things that put him in the bad guy bracket, but he's more good than bad. So seems to me most of these top brass of the police are, well, I don't want to call them corrupt, that is too strong, but I think they, South Africans in general, have lost confidence in the top brass of the police. But if you talk to ordinary South Africans, the good policemen, the ones that really doing their work, you'll find them as a station commander in Beaufort West or in Wesselsbron or in some of these places, they are good policemen that are doing their work to the best of their ability. The question is, why are they not coming through? That is the case. I mean, Crime intelligence. While we're talking about this, Dumusani Khumalo is missing in action for the last two or three weeks. He did well for three days before Madlanga and then suddenly fell ill. Now I'm not sure what kind of illness. Flu usually will take you a week or so. A heart attack may keep you out of business maybe for two weeks. So I'm not sure what's happening there, but there's definitely a….. And that to me is probably the weakest link in the police, is Crime Intelligence. And now remember, Sibiya is head of all detectives and Crime Intelligence used to fit in under him as a Deputy National Commissioner. Now they're making it and they've got different reporting lines to take Crime Intelligence away. But if there's a... Theo Venter (41:39.488)..if there's a need for a remake, that is Crime Intelligence. And another one that I would suggest is to return to the design of the Scorpions pre-2007. Because the biggest single problem with the Scorpions then was the Scorpions reported directly to the President and not to a Minister. The Hawks as the remake of the Scorpions, they took that direct link to the head of state away and they've put it into the police and you're now reporting through a minister to the president and that's where we sit. So we're now paying a price and this is. I know this is a Sunday talk, this is not a history lesson, but it takes us back to 2007. A lot of these problems that we currently experiencing goes back to 2007 - and we're now paying the price..Chris Steyn (42:38.569)Now, sometimes it takes decades for the truth to emerge as we have just seen when the KZN High Court found that former Nobel Prize laureate, Chief Albert Luthuli, was not killed by a freight train but was beaten to death by the Security Branch. Theo Venter (43:00.558)Yeah, I'm not surprised by that. We had a very biased judicial system prior to 1994. Remember, people must remember the design of our court system. In my view, looking back, the most radical and the most important change in South Africa in 1994 was not the move from a single member constituency system to a proportional system. Neither was it the move from a selective democracy to a full inclusive democracy. It was the independence of the courts. Because prior to 1994, the courts were subject to the sovereignty of parliament. After 1994, the courts were independent. They can now decide their own things. And lot of the ministers, not ministers, judges, in the previous dispensation were good judges, but of course they had sympathies with government. They were either National Party members or Broederbond members or whatever. So your court decisions sometimes were very awkward and one could own one in most cases where the ANC were involved or so-called terrorists that they were called then. I think less than objective judgments were made. And I think we will hear something similar about the Cradock 4. The tragedy of these cases, of course, is it's only taking place now and the evidence is old. Most of the people that could provide good evidence either are old and fragile or they've got dementia or whatever. So it's difficult to make these cases but yes, it does not surprise me that that is the outcome. Chris Steyn (45:18.971)Lastly, former President Thabo Mbeki is still maintaining that they are still Apartheid agents in the African National Congress and high up in leadership.. causing trouble. Theo Venter (45:36.302)Yeah, I will never forget the first of the important ANC conferences took place in Mafikeng. I think it was 1997 or 1998. In the row, Mandela was then president, chosen president, but he indicated that he will only serve one term. And when his term is over, he's going, which is...which is statesman kind of things, which he was, of course. But behind him stood four people in line for deputy president. There was Thabo Mbeki, there was Cyril Ramaphosa, there was Matthew Phosa, and there was Jacob Zuma. And then out of those four, if Chris Hani was alive, he would have been there as well. There would have been five. Out of those four, Mbeki was chosen. And immediately within the ANC there were stories about conspiracies. Conspiracies that Thabo never really succeeded in his military training in the Soviet Union. As a matter of fact, even if you read his autobiography, he said that he was more interested in the political developments than in the military developments. So he wasn't. And if you listen to Jacob Zuma later on and other people, then they will tell you that Thabo wasn't a good soldier. But it's difficult to say these things when this guy is the president. And it is difficult to say these things when he's in control. And then, of course, after the death of Chris Hani, there was these rumours that Thabo Mbeki is actually a CIA agent. And MI6 was mentioned in it.. ..when you get to somebody like and so on and so on, which if you look at it objectively, some of it must have been true because the Big Five then, is not Madlanga’s Big Five, this is now Canada, America, United States, Germany, I can't remember the fifth one, that were involved in the transition, they must have had… Theo Venter (48:00.13)…their people high up in any organisation. That's normal. That's how intelligence operates. You have people close, you've got people inside, and you've got people that provide you with information. It happens all over the world, it happens all the time. And in the case of the ANC, what made them especially vulnerable to these kind of things, and this is where Thabo Mbeki is also still vulnerable, and that is the lack of resources. They did not have money. If you listen to some of the stories that happened in Tanzania and some of the camps in Angola and some of the camps in Zambia, they really had a hard time getting money, paying for things. So whenever somebody provided them with money, they took it. And you know, it's a situation that's playing off in front of our eyes again. If you pay Sibiya, it is alleged, then he can make your problem go away. If you're a bishop or if you're a taxi boss or whatever. If somebody provides you with money in a brown envelope, it means he wants something. It's not Father Christmas that wants peace and bless everybody and have a nice time. No, no. When money moves from one person to another person and politicians are involved or police are involved, it means it's something for something. Something must happen. And Thabo Mbeki tried its best. He developed into a statesman of note, especially in African politics. But his situation over the last...year or two to me was sometimes a very paradoxical and on the one hand he says to his brother Ramaphosa you must have a national conference or a convention and then when the National Convention takes place he's not happy with the structure, then he doesn't support it and then he supports it and then he doesn't support it; so your role as Theo Venter (50:27.796)…as an ex-president is not to be involved in politics. That is of course with the exception of two people. And the one exception is Donald Trump and the other exception is Jacob Zuma. Because they can't keep these roles. If they play chess with you, they'll move the rook like a bishop. That's what they do. And therefore, somebody once said that if you put all the English curse words together on this Holy Sunday, you get a new word and it's called disconfuculation. They have the ability to disconfuculate the political situation, but the other guys, they stay basically in the lines and Thabo Mbeki yeah, I think he will battle that albatross around his neck for as long as he's involved. Chris Steyn (51:20.861)I wonder what they will say about President Cyril Ramaphosa when he is no longer president. Theo Venter (51:27.466)I think Ramaphosa is a very well rounded politician in the sense that my view is that he's a far better diplomat than a politician. In other words, he can say nice things, he can have good speeches, he can be very, very nice in terms of dealing with conflict situations and these kind of things because he got skilled as a lawyer in the old COSATU and the National Union of Mineworkers negotiating with Bobby Godsell and with all these big guys. So, his skills are very, very well developed, but he does not like a head on fight. He's not a good politician. He takes too long to take decisions. He's sitting on his thumbs doing nothing. Take for instance the legislation on Appropriation without Compensation or just the Appropriations Act. He signed the Act knowing that two or three of the clauses is unconstitutional and then when it is challenged in court by political parties and interest groups and this and that and the other, he then acknowledges…in his affidavit that he accedes to the fact that clauses so so and so is uncommon. Now why on earth would you sign it if you know it is wrong? And I think we're going down a similar track with the National Health Insurance System. We know already that it's unaffordable. We know already that there needs to be a different model. And if I listen to the board of all the medical insurance companies they've got some very innovative answers - and there's several other things that we can do but the current model he's running on with his man from Limpopo… I think they just plain wrong Chris Steyn (53:42.697)Earlier you mentioned that it might be wise for former Minister Mchunu to take an ambassadorial post, but in the light of what happened to another former police minister while ambassador in France, I don't think he's going to appreciate your suggestion, Professor. Theo Venter (54:02.284)Yeah, no, that was just tongue in cheek. But my honest view would be that as a politician, Mchunu is a dead duck. I think his position currently is fatal. And usually when these things happen, smart guys can see the escape routes. If they asked me what to do, I would do the following. I would take him out of politics. I will put him in Luthuli. I will make him the Elections Manager for next year, which means you keep him very busy. You don't see him often. He then becomes a deputy to Fikile Mbalula, which will, of course, be the face together with Ramaphosa in the coming election and through that almost sanitize him, through taking him out, giving him another job and then bringing him back. They're doing that with Malusi Gigaba at the moment. Malusi Gigaba was a persona non grata after the Zondo Commission and now he's chairman of I think the Defense Committee in Parliament and and they're keeping him busy and slowly but surely. Remember, Malusi Gigaba was in the beginning before he became so involved in all kinds of alleged corruption and things, he was the kid that the ANC had in mind as president in 10 to 15 years. He lost that. So the ANC is busy with that. I call it political sanitisation. And that's probably what will happen to Mchunua. But I can't see him as a presidential candidate. I can't see him as anybody that is going to stand for any position unless he takes the way out of politics now and do something else. Because your institutional memory of public… Theo Venter (56:28.16)…in terms of politics and in terms of stupid things that you do, it is my view that the public memory is about three days. If you've done something on Monday, by Thursday, most people would have forgotten about that. But there are some people with long memories. So you need to manage the long memories. And the media plays an important role as the repository of some of those things that you can go back and see what happened there, this was done in an interview or this was written in a piece just to take that up again. In the case of Mchunu, I think this is the end of his political career. And of course, ambassadorial posts, I know the one in France is vacant as well as the one in the United States, but I also don't think he will be much appreciated by the Americans. Chris Steyn (57:32.541)Thank you. That was political and policy analyst, Professor Theo Venter on the Sunday Show, the NDB Sunday Show with me, Chris Steyn. Thank you, Professor. Theo Venter (57:45.932)My pleasure.

The NdB Sunday Show: Prof Theo Venter - Mkhwanazi, Mchunu, Masemola, Matlala, Maumela, Mogotsi, Mofele & Sibiya

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