JUSTICE MALALA | Mchunu’s gullibility nearly exposed Union Buildings to wily nobodies like Mogotsi

Is it possible that Brian Mogotsi went to the Madlanga Commission believing that he would save his friend Senzo Mchunu, the suspended police minister? He didn’t. Mogotsi buried Mchunu.

Mogotsi, who seems blasé about the fact that he lied several times under oath (even, it seems, about his birth date — which really tells you something) on several occasions, obfuscated, deflected, evaded and lied his way through three days of testimony. He is unqualified for anything, particularly the jobs he claims to be doing, and failed to provide a shred of proof for any of the assertions he made. Not a piece of paper; not a picture; not a text message.

What emerged is a picture of a scammer. He conned the alleged criminal mastermind “Cat” Matlala into believing he held sway over minister Mchunu. He conned the minister into believing he could make him president of South Africa. He conned police top brass into believing that he had the ear of those who could promote them.

It’s all smoke and mirrors, made up by a man who claims he was an ANC soldier at a time when he was 13-years old and the armed struggle for liberation was concluded.

Mogotsi dominated the news cycle last week, hogging the headlines away from G20 preparations. Should he be the focus of this column? The truth is that Mogotsi is a nonentity, a tiny bug that will be squelched by history and the quest for truth and accountability in South Africa.

What do Mchunu’s actions say about the way we elect leaders and how the party system allows them to rise and, before your eyes are fully open, they end up in the most powerful office in the land and perhaps even on the continent?

Of real significance is what we need to fix in South Africa: the fact that a man who was being touted as a possible successor to President Cyril Ramaphosa could have fallen into the web of a shyster, a small-time conman who is not too blessed with grey matter, like Mogotsi.

What does that say about Mchunu’s judgment, his ability to detect bullsh*t, his ability to dig deep into an individual’s character before rushing to do their bidding? What does it say about his fitness for office?

If Mchunu can make such a gargantuan mistake at just this level, with just this one man, how many others has he made? What are we to make of the fact that his chief of staff, Cedrick Nkabinde, is now facing a charge of perjury filed by the Economic Freedom Fighters following his disastrous testimony in parliament last week?

If there is anything to be learnt from the testimony of Mchunu’s “comrade”, Mogotsi, and his chief of staff, Nkabinde, it is that the minister is very bad at judging character and at hiring.

Why didn’t Mchunu ask the commissioner of police, Fannie Masemola, to verify who he was talking to when Mogotsi first came into his orbit? Instead, he rushed to disband an entire police unit while leaking his actions to such a shyster.

Mchunu is a national security risk. Think about that: the police minister (he has not been fired and he has not resigned) is a national security risk. If every national security official behaves like him, then our country will never win against crime.

What do Mchunu’s actions say about the way we elect leaders and how the party system allows them to rise and, before your eyes are fully open, they end up in the most powerful office in the land and perhaps even on the continent?

In 2017, at the ANC’s Nasrec conference, Mchunu went head to head with “Ace” Magashule in a contest for the party’s secretary-general position. Magashule was in alliance with the Jacob Zuma faction while Mchunu was with the Ramaphosa faction. Though Ramaphosa won the party presidency, Mchunu lost the secretary-general position. Magashule received 2,360 votes to Mchunu’s 2,336.

If those 24 votes had gone the other way, Mchunu would probably have been into his second term as ANC secretary and would have been a shoo-in for presidency of the ANC. He would have brought along Brown Mogotsi and Cedrick Nkabinde, or similar people, to the Union Buildings.

Mchunu should not wait to be asked to resign. He should do so now, of his own volition. He is guilty of conducting an improper relationship, at the very least, for the pecuniary gain of his political campaign. More damning, however, is that he bought into the lies of a conman.

The minister of police fell for the tricks of an unsophisticated, crude, crass, scammer. As always in cases like these, it is not the scammer who should be held solely responsible. The victim’s greed, obstinacy in refusing advice, and all the other human foibles that come into play, are responsible.

To fund his presidential campaign, Mchunu allowed himself to become a pawn of Mogotsi. There were a million red flags, but hunger for power made him ignore them all. His actions tell us everything that needs to be said about him. He must go now.