Senzo Mchunu is either a sinister criminal mastermind or a naive political figurehead manipulated by crooked cops and generals, by an opportunistic chief of staff of questionable character and by an utterly dodgy ANC spy. He is either a criminal genius or a pawn in the sinister infiltration of criminal justice by criminal cartels, which evidence before the Madlanga commission has revealed. His long-awaited testimony before the commission of inquiry chaired by former Constitutional Court justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga last week centred on his contested decision to disband the political killings task team (PKTT), the product of a 2018 presidential directive to an interministerial task team to stem politically related killings in KwaZulu-Natal.
It is this directive that is likely to be a focus in the commission’s interim report, expected to be handed to President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday next week. Mchunu wasplaced on special leave by Ramaphosaafter the allegations of political infiltration in the criminal justice system were revealed by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi in a media briefing in July. A finding that his decision to disband the PKTT in a directive to police commissioner Fannie Masemola on December 31 2024 was irrational could force Ramaphosa to axe Mchunu, effectively ending his political career.
Read:Zuma fails to overturn Ramaphosa’s decisions on Mchunu and Madlanga He was emerging as a logical candidate to contest for the ANC presidency in 2027, against frontrunner Paul Mashatile. Testimony before the commission revealed thathis ties to criminal kingpinswere based on the need to raise funding for his presidential campaign. Mchunu’s defence before the Madlanga commission was decidedly similar to the one he put up before parliament’s ad hoc committee, also investigating political interference in the criminal justice system.
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Before the ad hoc committee, Mchunu became unstuck over the wording of his New Year’s Eve directive to “immediately” disband the PKTT. He testified that “immediately” did not mean “now”, rather it referred to a process. MPs battled to accept this explanation, arguing that “immediately” did in fact mean “now”. Similarly, before the Madlanga commission, Mchunu became unstuck over the omission of a word in a directive setting up another task team (against taxi violence) in the same month that he disbanded the PKTT.
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