It is a terrible thing to come across a human being who is apparently without a soul. Last week, thanks to the Madlanga commission of inquiry, we came across such a frightening specimen. It is KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Major-General Lesetja Senona.
Senona presented us with a picture of our country as it is, not as what we wish or hope or fool ourselves it is. Here, on live television, was a shameless human being who did not care for his colleagues, for his office, for his people, or for his own sense of being. Here was entitlement.
Here was arrogance. Here was an alleged criminal hiding behind the office, the badge, the uniform, of a policeman. Senona recounted how he had consorted with suspected criminal mastermind Vusumuzi “Cat” Matlala, referring to him as his “little brother”, and how he encouraged him to “take on” the state when it acted against Matlala’s alleged criminal activities.
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Then it was revealed that Senona had given a police docket with sensitive information to Matlala. The SA Police Service docket included the identity numbers, cellphone numbers and photos of six members of the KwaZulu-Natal Hawks — people who reported directly to Senona — as well as provincial members of Crime Intelligence. How did this man sleep at night after giving his colleagues’ information to an organised crime suspect?
Is this person even worthy to be referred to as a policeman? If anyone ever doubted the efficacy of establishing the Madlanga inquiry, Senona and others (such as the bribe-taking EMPD chief Julius Mkhwanazi and the fantasy-spewing Brian Mogotsi) have made its existence clear. We knew the police were rotten.
We knew the system was not working. But now no leader can say that they do not know what SA is faced with. We will not win against murder, rape, hijackings, fraud, theft, assaults and the numerous other categories of crime in this country because criminals have access to the top echelons of the police. Criminals are the police.
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