The generals: Heroes, villains or both? - John Matisonn

Key topics:Masemola claims Minister Mchunu ordered the disbanding of the political killings task team, citing “no killings after 1994.”Minister allegedly told Masemola that President Ramaphosa supported the decision — which Masemola doubted, given Ramaphosa’s earlier praise.Evidence exposes rifts at the top of SAPS, with Masemola, Mkhwanazi, and Khumalo aligned against Mchunu and Sibiya..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..By John Matisonn.National police commissioner General Fannie Masemola dropped a bombshell in the Madlanga Commission on his second day of testifying, saying Police Minister Senzo Mchunu ordered the political killings task team disbanded because there were “no political killings after 1994.” Masemola also said the minister told him President Cyril Ramaphosa supported Mchunu’s decision to disband the PKTT, which Masemola found hard to believe because when he last briefed Ramaphosa the president was pleased with the task team’s recent successes in tracking down alleged assassins. Masemola had informed Ramaphosa of his concerns when Mchunu instructed him to close the unit, and the president had promised to discuss it with Mchunu. Masemola’s two days of testimony have gone a long way to explain two of the biggest mysteries surrounding what looks like the biggest scandal of the Ramaphosa era – about the roles of the president and national police commissioner.Mchunu, currently on leave though still designated as police minister, has yet to testify before the commission, where he is likely to challenge Masemola’s version. But he will have his work cut out for him, after Masemola corroborated the allegations of the prime accuser, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.President Ramaphosa will likely also have to appear before the commission to corroborate or dispute Masemola’s evidence.Masemola, who had stayed silent in public since Mkhwanazi’s explosive July 7 media briefing, provided the sequence of events leading up to and following Mchunu’s instruction to disband the unit on December 31 last year.Masemola said his minister had kept mum about his intentions to close the unit before he did so, a few days after Masemola went on leave with the minister’s knowledge and approval. On his return in January he made several efforts to find out why Mchunu took this decision, since he considered the unit’s success in tracking down criminals and winning convictions “unmatched.”It was only on March 6 that Mchunu finally offered the explanation that “there were no political killings after 1994.” Masemola found this explanation strange, adding that a major cause of political assassinations was conflict over “succession” to elected positions within a party, followed by rivalries between parties.Masemola’s evidence is that he informed Mchunu that the police were investigating links between deputy national commissioner of crime detection Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya and a criminal syndicate. He also said when he refused to issue an instruction to disband the PKTT, Sibiya went behind his back to issue that instruction, and ordered that all dockets of crimes the PKTT was investigating be brought to his office.A presentation provided during Mkhwanazi’s press conference said that on 26 March this year, Sibiya, acting on Mchunu’s instruction, had directed that 121 case dockets under investigation be removed from the team.The outlines of the power struggle at the top of South African law enforcement are becoming clearer. While Mchunu and Sibiya seem to be on the same page, Masemola and Mkhwanazi are aligned with crime intelligence boss Dumisani Khumalo. Masemola said he was the one who asked Khumalo in 2024 to call the KZN team to come to Gauteng to help with investigations after a whistle-blower told him Sibiya was “close friends” with attempted-murder accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala.Masemola said the whistle-blower also alleged Matlala was implicated in the kidnapping case of businessman Jerry Boshoga, but Gauteng police would not do a good job investigating Matlala. Matlala, at the time, had a R360m SAPS tender. Masemola said the allegations by the whistle-blower were under investigation and have not yet been proven.But both Masemola and Mkhwanazi have their critics. In KwaZulu-Natal Mkhwanazi has been accused of using brutal tactics, and his attacks on two opposition MPs, Diana Kohler-Barnard and Fariel Adams, seemed to lump them in with serious offenders after they used official documents in ways he thought irregular. Forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan alleged that before his appointment as national commissioner, Masemola was spending beyond his earnings. “If Cyril doesn’t get a grip on this, it will be his downfall,” O’Sullivan told BiznewsTV. “Phalaphala will pale into insignificance.” Phalaphala is the president’s farm, where USD580,000 stuffed into couches was stolen.

The generals: Heroes, villains or both? - John Matisonn

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