The gloves are off. In an explosive press briefing on Sunday, KwaZulu-Natal’s top cop, Provincial Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi proclaimed he was combat ready and willing to die for the police badge, making serious allegations against Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and Deputy National Commissioner Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya.
Mkhwanazi said he would be opening a case against Mchunu for alleged interference in policing matters. He said this extended to the minister’s hand and influence in the closure of a task team unit investigating political killings.
He also said links between an associate of the minister and the alleged criminal underworld, had been made through cellphone analysis.
Mkhwanazi also appeared to be defending his boss, Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola and the senior officers recently arrested in terms of a recent Crime Intelligence racket bust. He proclaimed his boss was the Police Commissioner, no one else, and that the police minister had no rights nor powers to close down policing units. He also claimed there was a ploy to remove Masemola in order to destabilise the police.
Mkhwanazi made damning and alarming revelations, accusing Mchunu of interference in policing operations and of shutting down the political killings task team unit just as it was uncovering links between a powerful drug cartel and high-ranking politicians, police officers, and prosecutors.
He also said Mchunu had organized a private meeting between himself, Sibiya and Mkhwanazi, where he attempted to clear the bad blood between them.
Mkhwanazi remarked that “there can never be peace between a criminal and policeman”, he said, labelling the national crimes detection boss, Sibiya, as a criminal.
“We are on combat mode, I am taking on the criminals directly… I am a police officer, who understood the task at hand when I joined the service.
”I chose the combating side of policing. I understand that at this present moment the war we are facing deals with high level senior officers,” said Mkhwanazi.
Mkhwanazi, dressed in his Special Task Force combat uniform and surrounded by other armed officers from the STF and TRT units, said that 121 case dockets were unexpectedly removed from the task team in March and subsequently shelved at the police head office in Pretoria.
According to Mkhwanazi, this action was reportedly taken under the directive of Sibiya, who is alleged to have acted on the orders of Mchunu.
“This was done without the authority of the National Commissioner, nor I as a Provincial Commissioner was ever informed,” Mkhwanazi said.
“Five of these dockets had instructions to arrest perpetrators, but nothing has been done they are sitting in an archive in his office in Pretoria. God knows why.”
The commissioner alleged that the disbanded unit uncovered links between a national criminal syndicate, politicians, police officials, and senior prosecutors, possibly leading to pressure to halt their work.
“I can confirm to South Africans today that the investigation these members were involved with in Gauteng has unmasked a syndicate. It involves politicians who are currently serving in Parliament,” he said.
Mkhwanazi also accused Mchunu of misleading Parliament regarding his relationship with Brown Mokgotsi, an associate who had access to classified police documents and communicated about internal SAPS decisions, including the disbandment of the unit.
“The Minister denied knowing Mr. Brown Mokgotsi in Parliament. But later confirmed on a public platform that he is his comrade from North West,” Mkhwanazi said.
Since its establishment in 2018, the Political Killings Task Team was an integrated multidisciplinary unit involving the South African Police Service, the National Prosecuting Authority, State Security, and Correctional Services. It focused on politically motivated killings and related crimes in KwaZulu-Natal.
On the matter of the senior officers arrested recently for covert intelligence operations, Mkhwanazi alleged they were being framed, as if they spoke, they would uncover national security issues, which could in turn lead to them being charged further.
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