John Matisonn: The Smooth Cat who says he paid Cele half a million

Key topics:Testimony exposes police corruption linked to ANC presidential power struggleMatlala admits illicit payments to senior officials to secure contractsAlleged campaign funding sourced from tender winners tied to criminality.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.Cat Matlala, the alleged source of money for a BBL – a Brazilian Butt Lift – as well as the next presidential election campaign wore leg irons, tasteful check Burberry shoes and a Fendi shirt reportedly retailing at R22,000.But inside that hip gear was one cool cat. Vusimusi Matlala is called the Cat because he is said to have nine lives, and his cool under pressure suggests he expects he’ll have a few more. On the first day of his testimony at the C MAX prison where he is incarcerated, accused attempted murderer Cat Matlala came across as the most professional player in parliament’s televised ad hoc committee hearings into police corruption. What was so striking about Cat was his unflapability. Asked if it was not obvious his close friend, Jerry Boshoga, who was kidnapped and tortured one year ago, was now a liability to his kidnappers by now, which meant he was almost certainly already dead, he did not break a sweat.Yes, he agreed, he would by now be seen as a liability, so his demise was likely. Under the meandering examination of evidence leader Norman Arendse, SC, Matlala was professional, even helpful. He freely told the committee he had entertained ex-police minister Bheki Cele and gave him large sums of money because Cele felt he was owed repayment for a favour. He gave him R500,000 in cash, but Crele wanted at least R1million.Matlala has friends. When he feared losing a lucrative police contract, his close friend KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Major General Lesetja Senona drove him to solicit help from Lt. General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the province’s police commissioner.Matlala said Mkhwanazi told him that to save the contract he would have to do a favour for Lt. General Lineo Nkhuoa, head of human resources.Mkhwanazi, too, wanted a favour in return for his help, according to Matlala.Evidence also showed his closeness to Ekurhuleni police chief Julius Mkhwanazi, who stayed in office despite mounting evidence all the way until he was named in the Madlanga Commission this month.Matlala did not like being asked to give police officials handouts, because that was corrupt. But he tried to claim that while they were corrupt for asking for money, he was no more than merely unethical for providing it.After Arendse was done, MPs’ questions were more pointed.It was former prosecutor and DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach, with 26 years as a prosecutor under her belt, who brought Matlala’s lofty demeanour back to earth with staccato questions that made him admit to each of his 13 recorded brushes with the law, the last only seven years ago.Between 2000 and 2018 there were 13 occasions when he was charged with crimes. The charges were in different parts of South Africa and ranged from theft from a motor vehicle to house breaking to car theft, common assault, impersonating a policeman during another assault, and attempted murder in 2018.Only one charge, burglary in 2001, led to a conviction. Every other time he got off, mostly because charges were withdrawn. Who gets that lucky?He served for years in prison, but since then he freely acquired and licensed at least five firearms and obtained a security business licence because the only crime he was convicted of was a non-violent crime, he explained.The parliamentary committee and the Madlanga Commission will have trouble sifting the truth from the claims and counter-claims made by witnesses from what has emerged as two factions, one around on-leave police minister Senzo Mchunu and the other around his predecessor, General Bheki Cele.The battle between these two ANC and government heavyweights involves crooks, millions of rands, government contracts and ANC election races.Most witnesses agree on the most important fact – that underneath this was a battle for the next presidency of South Africa, and that funding from people like Matlala would determine the winner.Along the way, the top spots in the South African Police Services are to be populated by those allied with one or the other.Matlala says that Cele told him Mchunu wants to be president, and Cele did not like the idea. Brown Mogotsi’s evidence was that this was a key motive in the conflict.It’s clear that the funds to pay for these presidential campaigns will be sought from those who have won government tenders, and that some of them are involved in criminality which does not stop the politicians from soliciting their support. Matlala’s personal story is tragic, according to his evidence.He never knew his father, and his mother was an albino. She was raped repeatedly because people believed that “if you can rape and albino, you can get cured” from disease.She could not take the trauma and fled, leaving Matlala without adult support. “I was actually a street kid,” he said. Later, when he had made some money, he found her, but he was too late and she died soon after.According to Jeff Wicks, author of The Shadow State, the family “live the high life, with private helicopter charters, designer clothes and overseas trips, and show off their wealth on social media.”Until he was arrested, Matlala travelled in a convoy of four cars accompanied by 14 security guards. He testified he pays R2million a month for his own security.How did senior politicians allow our political system to be so corrupted? What’s needed is more fundamental reform or this will happen again.

John Matisonn: The Smooth Cat who says he paid Cele half a million

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