Amid the ongoing turmoil within the police's high ranks, President Cyril Ramaphosa last week received documents indicating internal SAPS concerns regarding the effectiveness and escalating costs of the political killings task team.
The documents suggest that as far back as April last year national police commissioner Fannie Masemola was told he should consider deactivating the team.
The Sunday Times had sight of documents sent to Ramaphosa last week as he met separately with suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu, Masemola and KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
Subsequent to these meetings, Ramaphosa placed Mchunu on special leave and established a judicial commission of inquiry led by deputy chief justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga. Masemola then placed one of his deputies, Maj-Gen Shadrack Sibiya, on leave after allegations by Mkhwanazi that he associated with criminals and disbanded the task team as directed by Mchunu.
Included among the documents, which sources indicated constitute Mchunu's defence, was a note from SAPS CFO Lt-Gen Puleng Dimpane to Masemola on April 16 2024 advising him to deactivate the task team.
This was subsequent to crime intelligence head Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo, the task team project manager supported by Sibiya, requesting a budget of R94m for the team in March 2024. Khumalo was arrested last month on charges related to alleged corruption.
But Dimpane warned that the SAPS could no longer afford to fund the task team. This was before a November 2024 complaint to parliament’s portfolio committee on police by human rights activist Mary de Haas. She urged “the disbandment of the irregularly constituted political killings task team and the urgent need for an oversight body and audit of task team funding”.
Dimpane said: “Considering the 11% reduction in the operational budget of the organisation, the following are recommended: an amount of R20,000,000 be approved for 2024/2025 financial year. Post elections, the task team be deactivated as it has been in existence for the last five years.”
Masemola, in approving the R20m suggested by Dimpane, said on the same day: “Task team will continue beyond elections so long there is work to be done, team [will] continue be localised to KZN”.
Serious concerns were raised by the president. He was not impressed that Mkhwanazi waited for him to leave the country to make such statements. It became clear that there were already concerns about the costs and conduct of the task team and that disbandment discussions were raised before Mchunu was appointed a minister in July
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According to a source privy to the discussions last week with Ramaphosa, Ramaphosa asked Masemola and Mkhwanazi tough questions regarding this and the task team’s alleged luxury expenditure at the Oyster Box Hotel in Umhlanga, which costs between R5,700 and R20,000 a night.
“Serious concerns were raised by the president. He was not impressed that Mkhwanazi waited for him to leave the country to make such statements. It became clear that there were already concerns about the costs and conduct of the task team and that disbandment discussions were raised before Mchunu was appointed a minister in July,” said a source with intimate knowledge of discussions last week.
Ramaphosa placed Mchunu, who was appointed minister in July last year, on special leave amid allegations by Mkhwanazi that he was in cahoots with alleged criminal associates who were in possession of state secrets.
Mkhwanazi alleged that subsequent to the arrest of murder accused Vusumuzi “Cat” Matlala, who won a R360m tender from the SAPS, police discovered communication on his phone between him and Brown Mogotsi, a close associate of Mchunu. In the conversation, Mogotsi allegedly told Matlala that Sibiya and the minister “must have a solution” and that “the task team that came to your house and harassed you has been dissolved; they got the letter on Monday. As we speak, they are bringing all the dockets to Sibiya.”
Mkhwanazi further alleged that conversations between Matlala and Mogotsi revealed that Matlala was supporting Mchunu and Mogotsi’s political “endeavours”. Mchunu had initially denied in parliament any knowledge of Mogotsi but was later found to consider him a comrade from the North West.
Mkhwanazi alleged that the motive behind the disbandment of the task team was to prevent it uncovering criminal syndicates which involved some members of the criminal justice system.
“On March 26 2025 a total of 121 case dockets under investigation were taken away from the task team as directed by the deputy national commissioner: crime detection Lt-Gen Sibiya, acting on the instruction of the minister of police to disband the task team. This was done without the authority of the national or provincial commissioner. These case dockets have been sitting at the head office ever since without any investigation work done on them,” said Mkhwanazi.
However, Mkhwanazi appears to have left out details that show that the instruction from Mchunu was communicated to Sibiya by Masemola’s office, and that Masemola was aware of the disbandment, as shown by his update to Mchunu in March.
It has also emerged that Mkhwanazi this week took the 121 dockets back to his province, raising concern about possible attempts to run a parallel investigation and tamper with the commission of inquiry. Sibiya wrote to deputy police minister Cassel Mathale raising concerns about Mkhwanazi’s investigation.
Sibiya said in his letter: “Deputy Minister, I am writing this message to officially inform you that there is an attempt to undermine the work of the Commission that has been established by the President to investigate allegations made by Lt-Gen Mkhwanazi ... Gen Mkhwanazi has established his own investigating team and ordered them to come to the head office, to conduct an inspection on the dockets that he already addressed the media about. He instructed the team to also obtain statements from the team at head office ... Why is he being allowed to run a parallel process?”
But police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe said the dockets “have not been removed from head office detectives as yet, but plans are in place to ensure they are collected and attended to in terms of the investigation to ensure justice for the victims and complainants in those cases”.
The Sunday Times has had sight of the reports compiled by the head office team on the 121 dockets taken and the 612 investigated by the task team. The reports show that many of the dockets reviewed by head office had not been investigated by the task team as far back as 2019, 2022 and 2023.
The dockets reveal uncollected witness statements, untraced suspects despite being known to the task team, and cases rejected by prosecutors for lack of evidence.
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