Shocking revelations must lead to swift police action

Were it not for the now-on-forced-leave police minister Senzo Mchunu writing a controversial letter on New Year’s Eve disbanding a police task team, we probably would never have known how deeply in trouble we are as a country. The decision to disband the KwaZulu-Natal-based Political Killings Task Team prompted a frustrated provincial police commissioner, General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, to convene an unprecedented media conference that blew into the open a corruption nexus linking criminal network, senior police officials and some politicians. Since that media conference, South Africans have been glued to their screens watching and listening to shocking evidence of police acting as runners and informants for crime bosses, going as far as — in one case — apparently tipping off a suspect in a kidnapping that cops were about to raid his house.

That tip-off allegedly led to the victim being moved to another place. He has still not been found. One of the witnesses to the Madlanga commission, which was appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate Mkhwanazi’s claims, was shot dead at the end of last year presumably at the instruction of people who feared he knew too much about their nefarious activities.

His alleged killer was nabbed this week, and he turns out to be a highly-trained former cop who once belonged to the SAPS Special Task Force. Perhaps most shocking this week, was the testimony by Mkhwanazi — who returned to parliament’s ad hoc committee yesterday — that a late taxi boss, Jotham Zanemvula “Mswazi” Msibi had become so powerful in the country that he ran “a parallel Union Buildings”. According to the KwaZulu-Natal police chief, politicians, top cops and businesspeople frequented Msibi’s farm to take instructions.

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Since his death, Mkhwanazi alleged, one of his associates had been trying to play the same role using Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and members of the syndicate. If any of this proves to be true, it would mean that South Africans fought to free themselves from the shackles of the Gupta family-led state capture only to land in the arms of a criminal syndicate that has captured the upper echelons of the police. It is imperative that what is being revealed at the commission and before the ad hoc committee leads to swift police action. Otherwise we run the risk of living in a country where you cannot really tell the difference between a cop and a criminal.

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