Cartels, crime, corruption: SAPS on the spot

When did we become Mexico? I mean, cartels, hit squads, corrupt coppers and on-the-take politicians … presided over, in South Africa’s case at least, by a parasitic ruling party that’s more leech than servant of the people.

That’s pretty much the picture that’s been painted so far at the Madlanga commission of inquiry into the police.

This week, crime intelligence boss Dumisani Khumalo took to the stand. No doubt his testimony will be challenged, but from the outside it looks compelling.

Here’s what Khumalo laid out: first, there is apparently a criminal cartel in Gauteng that’s involved in drugs, hijacking, kidnapping, cross-border vehicle theft, tender fraud and contract killings. Two of the ostensible kingpins in this “Big Five” syndicate are murder-accused Katiso “KT” Molefe and Vusimusi “The Cat” Matlala. Apparently every good gangster needs a nom de guerre.

If “The Cat” sounds familiar, it’s because he’s currently charged with the attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend. He’s also one of the alleged beneficiaries of the R2.1bn looting of Tembisa hospital, as the Special Investigating Unit laid out this week (and on which News24 has extensively reported). And he held a R360m health services contract with the police, awarded in the last days of Bheki Cele’s tenure as police minister. Awarded despite Matlala already being in the sights of the authorities for the Tembisa schlenter.

Just by the by, Matlala earlier this year put Cele up in his penthouse, gratis (also first reported by News24).

But back to Khumalo: he believes the cartel has bankrolled politicians and cultivated corrupt relationships within the police to safeguard its operations. Think manipulated investigations, quashed evidence and hindering legal proceedings.

On Tuesday, Khumalo got into the mechanics, hauling out WhatsApps purported to be between Matlala and apparent ANC fixer and influence peddler Brown Mogotsi.

The evidence has yet to be tested, but here’s the rough takeout from Khumalo’s testimony: Matlala, it seems, is in the dwang; he’s being investigated by the Gauteng police counterintelligence unit – only, he thinks it’s Khumalo’s political killings task team (PKTT) that’s after him.

Enter Mogotsi. Mogotsi styles himself as someone with close ties to the upper echelons of the police, and to police minister Senzo Mchunu himself. So Matlala pays Mogotsi – money that’s ostensibly going to ANC events and ANC members – and in return expects political protection for his dealings (and his contract). Like, say, disbanding the PKTT.

And, what do you know, success!

“The task team that came to yr house and harassed u has been Dissolved/Disbanded!” Mogotsi writes on January 1 – just a day after the PKTT was dissolved. The very next day he sends Matlala the disbandment letter police minister Senzo Mchunu sent to police commissioner Fannie Masemola. This is followed by classified information from crime intelligence.

So at the very least, Mogotsi seems to have access to top-level police structures, even if his name-dropping may be empty hubris – though he did send Matlala screen shots of apparent calls with one “Senzo Mchunu” in the week leading up to the PKTT disbandment.

Now, Matlala, in the belief that he’s got an inside track with a high-level politician, is coughing up: he’s paid a R37,000 deposit to a travel agency in December, as well as R25,000 for two (ANC) “regions”. Come January, he’s stumping up again, seemingly for a delegation to attend the ANC’s January 8 anniversary celebrations and for a table at the Progressive Business Forum gala dinner.

Here’s a message from Mogotsi: “Please confirm the following 1. The table – R100k 2. 8x flights 3. 75% balance of R111k Pliz and I will understand. This will allow me to handle everything and the minister,” TimesLive reports.

Mogotsi continues calling for cash, telling Matlala on February 19 that he has a “small problem … have to cater 12k tonight in the Eastern Cape”, on March 7: “I need 10k.”

But Matlala’s juicy contract with the police is also on the hook; Mchunu ordered an investigation into it four days after a News24 report into the dodgy award.

He asks for a meeting with Mchunu.

In return, Mogotsi sends a screen shot of a message sent to one “Senzo chief”: “This matter mayb escalated to you coz of non-Performance [on the contract]. Our guy need yr intervention. Jan 08 guy who is about to take over our program … I am sending him yr numbers tht u meet pliz.”

But apparently no meeting materialises, “The Cat’s” police contract is cancelled, and he takes great umbrage: “I am not taking this likely [lightly].” He later notes that he’s taken screen shots of all conversations and will take these to the media and to court. Which you’d think would be the ultimate self-burn, but anyway, he’s arrested before that happens.

‘Comrade’ Mogotsi

Of course, the authenticity of these messages will still need to be verified. And it must be noted that there’s no evidence – in fact, the contrary – that Mchunu ever met Matlala.

Even the calls in the week leading up to the PKTT’s disbandment are just call logs; we have no idea what was said in them – or if they were even to Mchunu’s phone or can be proved as such (you’d imagine this is the world of the untraceable burner phone).

But if Khumalo is on the money, Mchunu was at the least consorting with an intermediary to the underworld – one who had access to classified police information. At worst, he was exerting political influence on his behalf. It’s no good look for Mchunu that he initially denied knowing Mogotsi, and later U-turned to call him a “comrade”.

Khumalo is still set to give evidence in camera – so maybe some of those gaps will be plugged. Also, the inquiry is a long way from done; there’s still much to play out.

Faith in the police

Now, the whole reason President Cyril Ramaphosa instituted the Madlanga commission of inquiry was to restore public faith in the police. That may be quite the ask; the evidence so far suggests the rot goes deep.

And there’s huge ground to make up with the public. An Afrobarometer survey released last year found 60% of South Africans believe “most” or “all” police are corrupt; 43% don’t trust the police “at all”; and 47% believe the police engage in corrupt activity “often” or “always”.

The commission will have done little to dispel that view.

That’s particularly so because the ANC has become synonymous with entrenched corruption, and its practice of cadre deployment has seen its tentacles extend to every level of the state.

That makes it easy to believe the testimony of KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, police commissioner Masemola and, now, Khumalo that politicians are turning a blind eye to criminality – or actively supporting it – in return for personal or party enrichment.

That this may be happening under Ramaphosa blows up the myth of the binary ANC: the “good” and the “bad”; the CR17 and the RET/Zuma brigade. It’s the party itself that’s rotten to the core, and it’s taking the state down with it.

In Mexico, the Institutional Revolutionary Party was eventually voted out of power. But not before it had created a modern state that “has never functioned without corruption”, Lawrence Weiner wrote for The Atlantic in 2013, “and its current system would either collapse or change beyond recognition if it tried to do so”.

South Africa would seem to be on the same trajectory.

_{Top image: Rawpixel/Currency collage.}