Ramaphosa's new police inquiry — while sitting on two previous reports
President Cyril Ramaphosa has ignored two previous reports from commissions into corruption, including those of the police and Crime Intelligence, after national security crises.
Yet he has again established a judicial commission of inquiry, this time under Constitutional Court Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga. The 63-year-old judge, who is acting deputy chief justice and retires later this year, was SA's youngest high court judge at 34. He was an evidence leader at the State Capture commission.
Madlanga will probe the explosive allegations made by Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi into political interference in crime fighting and organised crime in the police service, and also in three metropolitan police services.
Ramaphosa also appointed Prof Firoz Cachalia as acting police minister. Incumbent Senzo Mchunu has been placed on special leave until the commission makes its findings.
For 14 months, since May 2024, Ramaphosa has sat on a report which advised him on exactly what needed to happen to stabilise the police service and clean up Crime Intelligence. The report by Prof Firoz Cachalia (now acting police minister) and his fellow councillors of the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council (Nacac) has gathered dust on his desk at the Union Buildings.
The President has neither engaged with nor released the Nacac report from a commission he set up to make recommendations after the State Capture commission made its findings.
For three years, Ramaphosa has sat on another report which advised him on exactly what needed to happen to stabilise the police service and clean up Crime Intelligence. This report by Prof Sandy Africa was commissioned after what Ramaphosa called an 'attempted insurrection' in July 2021 (the July riots), which saw confidence in South Africa rattled as looting and lawlessness went on for days and days.
Prof Africa made recommendations about stabilising the police service, depoliticising it and cleaning up Crime Intelligence, as well as national intelligence. There is little evidence that any of her recommendations have been implemented.
The President's inaction on both reports raises questions about how effective he will allow the third commission into the same topic to be. If South Africa had a functioning intelligence service, General Mkwanazi would not have had to detonate a live grenade in the public square to highlight the rot in Mzansi policing, as he did last week.
Paymasters, politicians and tenderpreneurs
At the heart of the story is that the state is not yet uncaptured.
The case of Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and the influence allegedly exercised over him by tenderpreneur Vusi 'Cat' Matlala neatly fits the pattern of State Capture chronicled in the findings of the Zondo commission.
In each major case examined at the commission, the pattern is almost the same. Paymasters acting for tenderpreneurs work with intermediaries to capture politicians whom they lavish with largesse, and then influence government processes such as policy and tenders. This is how the state is repurposed for capture.
While Mchunu has won plaudits from civil society in the security sector for being a breath of fresh air, he now has many questions hanging over his head, as tabled by Mkhwanazi.
Notably, his admission that information peddler and North West ANC influencer Brown Mogotsi is a 'comrade'. (For background, see Caryn Dolley's report here.) Mogotsi, in turn, was allegedly in the pay of Matlala, a tenderpreneur in health and policing, first exposed by Jeff Wicks in News24. (See Wicks's reports here – News24 is paywalled)
In the country's most high-profile acts of capture at Eskom and Transnet, the middleman Salim Essa (in this case comparable with Brown Mogotsi) and the Guptas captured the former head of state, Jacob Zuma, as well as then Cabinet members Malusi Gigaba and Lynn Brown.
In the Correctional Services' capture by the logistics and facilities company Bosasa, the tenderpreneur Gavin Watson, using his executive Angelo Aggrizzi as paymaster, tried to buy the influence of ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe and party deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane. (Note: Mantashe has taken the State Capture commission of inquiry findings about him under review.)
What this shows is that three years after Ramaphosa received the report of the commission of inquiry into State Capture from Justice Raymond Zondo, the patterns of capture are still well entrenched in the ANC, now South Africa's largest party, rather than its governing party, and still affect national security.
Acting deputy chief justice Judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga, who will now head yet another judicial commission of inquiry into the capture of the police, has his work cut out for him. DM
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