KZN Hawks Head Lesetja Senona at the Madlanga Commission Of Inquiry at Brigitte Mabandla Judicial College on 28 January 2026 in Pretoria. Picture: Gallo Images/Frennie Shivambu It was yet another tough day for KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Hawks head Lesetja Senona, who returned to the Madlanga Commission for more cross-examination on Thursday. The session started with a back-and-forth between Senona’s legal team and the evidence leader, Advocate Adila Hassim, as they insisted that he had not been sent some of the material he was being questioned on.
A decision was eventually reached to continue proceedings. On Wednesday, Senona denied assisting Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala with his Saps contract challenges, arguing he only provided “moral support” when the tenderpreneur met with KZN police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. On Thursday, Hassim argued that WhatsApp texts between Matlala and Senona showed he provided more than moral support to the tendepreneur.
“With these texts, we’ve already shown how you provided assistance on 15 April. We’ve already discussed, and we don’t need to go there again, your response on 13 May, advising and more than advising, urging him to take them on and to sue the Saps in relation to his contract,” said Hassim. “Now, I’m taking you to this particular text where he says, ‘Please don’t forget to ask our brother about that lady who’s stirring problems’.
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Your response to him is not, what are you talking about? Your response to him is a thumbs-up. “It suggests agreement that you will follow up.
Isn’t that so?” Senona said his thumbs-up response should be interpreted as him ‘noting’ the text, but insisted it did not mean he was sure of the lady’s identity. He was, however, able to “assume” the lady in question was Lieutenant General Lineo Nkhuoa. “It was a common cause to me when we were talking about the issue of the payment in terms of the contract, that this contract is related to Medicare.
The only person dealing with this is the divisional commissioner, HR. And the divisional commissioner is Lieutenant General Nkhuoa,” explained Senona.
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