Police inquiry: The uniform is compromised and so is the response

Eyewitness News

6 days ago

Charles Matseke 30 July 2025 | 8:45 Police Crisis
South African Police Service (SAPS)
Police inquiry
President Cyril Ramaphosa. Picture: Katlego Jiyane/Eyewitness News
South Africans, brace yourselves for yet another commission of inquiry. What an expensive way to insult the intelligence of a nation, spending millions of rands to determine whether a corrupt official is guilty or GUILTY.
It's less about truth-finding and more about time-buying. Commissions in South Africa have become like national holidays for the political elite: long, ceremonial, and designed to postpone any real work.
The latest trigger? KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi's explosive public revelation that law enforcement operations are being sabotaged from within by fellow officers, no less. While his comments stopped short of naming names, the message was unmistakable: South Africa's criminal underworld no longer hides in the shadows. It has infiltrated the uniforms, taken over the SAPS headquarters, and embedded itself deep within the state.
What followed was predictable: media frenzy, political shock, and subsequently, a commission of inquiry. The public reaction will be equally predictable. People will swing between hysteria and euphoria, cheering every televised cross-examination, every defiant soundbite, every leaked document. There will be hashtags, slogans, and maybe even a few heroic headlines. But beneath the surface, a darker truth simmers: South Africans no longer trust the state to act on any of it. In a time of high populism and institutional decay, commissions of inquiry have become national therapy sessions and emotional safety valves for a public that no longer believes in the rule of law.
They absorb rage and release nothing. Mkhwanazi didn't merely raise concerns, he detonated a truth bomb that confirms what South Africans have long suspected. The rot in our security agencies is not incidental. It's institutional. And yet, what will be our national response? Another round of breathless headlines, another parade of 'we'll look into it' soundbites, and inevitably, another inquiry. South Africans have watched this movie before. We know the lines. We know how it ends; it ends with Nothing.
The tragedy here is not just that Mkhwanazi had to be so cautious, so cryptic, so calculated. The tragedy is that he had to speak at all. His vague-but-volcanic statement signals how broken the chain of command has become.
In a country where whistleblowers are murdered and truth-tellers become liabilities, his very act of speaking was both rebellion and self-preservation. He told enough truth to spark national alarm, but not so much as to guarantee professional suicide or personal danger (arguably). In doing so, he exposed more than corruption. He exposed the architecture of a bureaucratically managed mafia state.
We've seen the blueprints before. From Jackie Selebi's fall from SAPS Commissioner to convicted felon, to the infamous 2013 Gupta jet landing at Waterkloof Air Force Base, South Africa's security cluster has long operated like a gated estate for elites and their criminal partners. Mkhwanazi's disclosure is simply the latest reminder that the house is not only burning, it may already be under new, unofficial management, and still, we cling to commissions.
Remember the Zondo Commission? Four years. Over R1 billion spent. A 5,000-page record of grand corruption. And yet, as Justice Raymond Zondo himself now admits, the state lacks both the political will and prosecutorial muscle to enforce its recommendations. Before that, we had the TRC—truth without consequences.More recently, the Life Esidimeni hearings confirmed the deaths of over 140 vulnerable patients in state care, yet no one has truly been held accountable.
We seem adept at staging national confessions, but allergic to justice. So, we must ask: Are these commissions meant to uncover wrongdoing, or to manage public outrage? Are they catharsis or cover-up? Malcolm Gladwell, in David and Goliath, teaches us that underdogs win not by following the rules, but by bending them. Mkhwanazi's decision to break rank wasn't heroic in the traditional sense, it was strategic. He understands the terrain. In South Africa, speaking the whole truth can be fatal. So, he gave us just enough. Enough to remind us that the rot isn't just at the periphery, it's at the core.
But here's the real danger: in our national story, Goliath almost never loses. The system isn't merely resistant to change, it actively absorbs opposition. It consumes whistleblowers, isolates reformers, and rewards silence. Unless the revelation is backed by elite rivalry or sustained public pressure, the status quo remains untouched.
We saw this play out with President Cyril Ramaphosa's selective sense of accountability. Ramaphosa's removal of Dr Nobuhle Nkabane, accused of lying to parliament over senior appointments in the country's training sector. But when it comes to Senzo Mchunu, Ramaphosa's close ally and co-accused in damning corruption allegations, the president adopts monk-like restraint. The hypocrisy is staggering. It's Animal Farm in real time, some comrades are more equal than others. This is the essence of cartel logic. Loyalty trumps legality. Power protects itself. And the law? That's just for the opposition or the poor.
Even the SAPS and SAND institutions that should serve as bulwarks against criminality, now stand accused of being complicit. There are whispers (some louder than others) of Hawks investigators being intimidated, even assassinated, allegedly by forces within the state's own military structures. If true, this is no longer corruption, it is treason wearing camouflage. In such a context, vagueness becomes a strategy for survival. Mkhwanazi didn't name names because names come with consequences. He gave South Africa a glimpse, enough to jolt us out of apathy, but not enough to get himself targeted. In a state where truth-telling is dangerous, silence isn't cowardice.
It's a calculated protest. If history is any guide, we'll let the political class drag us through another round of commissions, statements, and policy documents that say a lot but change nothing. But perhaps this time we should break the script. Perhaps the public must finally demand more than rhetorical justice. Real investigations. Real arrests. Real jail time. Not just for scapegoats and side characters,but for the architects and beneficiaries of state-enabled criminality.
Because let's face it: South Africa doesn't just risk becoming a mafia state. It may already be rehearsing the role. And if we don't act soon, we won't need a commission to tell us who's guilty.