While the Madlanga Commission interim report will not be made public, President Cyril Ramaphosa is ‘quite keen’ for the commission to pursue criminal charges where necessary, almost immediately, according to the Presidency. President Cyril Ramaphosa did not have a legal obligation to release the widely anticipated Madlanga Commission interim report, which he was due to receive on Wednesday, 17 December 2025, the Presidency said on Monday. He will, however, make the full and final report public.
Among other reasons, the Presidency said the decision to withhold the interim report was to afford Ramaphosa, who did not have the luxury of time to follow the daily proceedings, an opportunity to get up to speed. Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya insisted it would not be helpful to start “chewing and debating” something that was “half baked”. “The reasoning is quite simple to understand.
Some of the witnesses who have come before the commission are going to be called back to continue with their evidence, and some had evidence located in certain specific areas but not as broad as it was meant to be, so those witnesses are still going to be given a chance to return to the commission and give evidence,” said Magwenya during a media briefing on Monday. The inquiry, which commenced its hearings in September, has been probing the “veracity, scope and extent” of the allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, about political interference in crime fighting and the infiltration of criminal syndicates in law enforcement. The commission has heard from a number of witnesses, including Minister Senzo Mchunu who is on special leave, and who is alleged to have issued a directive to disband the Political Killings Task Team, set up in 2018, to shield politically connected members of a criminal syndicate from prosecution.
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He disbanded the team without consulting national Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola. In December, he told the commission that as far back as 2019, a work study report had recommended integrating the Political Killings Task Team into the SAPS Murder and Robbery Unit. “The president has undertaken to release the final report publicly when the commission has concluded its work.
The president will then follow the guidance of the commission with respect to areas that will be of national security sensitivity and how those areas are to be managed,” Magwenya said. The commission, according to its terms of reference, has “all the powers necessary” to summon witnesses and compel the production of documents, and to conduct search-and-seizure operations, subject to applicable law.
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