MPs question Mchunu's relationships and credibility
ANC MP Xola Nqola said the relationships between suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and tender kingpin Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala and controversial North West businessman Oupa Brown Mogotsi was a concern.
Tuesday’s proceedings at Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee investigating allegations made by SAPS KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, began with evidence leader Advocate Norman Arendse SC concluding his questioning.
Arendse started by examining the Mchunu’s’s relationship with alleged mastermind and tender kingpin Matlala and Mogotsi.
Matlala, believed to be connected to fraudulent transactions in Tembisa Hospital, was arrested in 2025 on unrelated charges. He was arrested in April for allegedly orchestrating the 2023 attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend, actress Tebogo Thobejane. He is currently in custody after being denied bail.
Mogotsi has been implicated in the alleged unlawful interference at the South African Police Service (SAPS). He has been a central figure during the Madlanga Commission’s early testimony, with multiple witnesses pointing to his proximity to senior SAPS officials and his alleged role in corrupting the integrity of law enforcement.
Once Arendse was done, Members of Parliament (MPs) started their grilling of Mchunu and Nqola was one of the first to question the minister.
Speaking during a committee recess, Nqola said Mogotsi apparently lied and claimed non-existent relationships
“Mchunu was able to explain that, contained within the organisation called the ANC, is a lot of characters – a lot of thieves, a lot of witches, and a lot of pastors. It’s a multi-class organisation.
“Beyond that, he said, ‘I do not know Mr Matlala, I’ve never met him’… The role of the Ad Hoc Committee is to probe more into the nature of the relationships, because this Mogotsi person goes around making claims, and what is worrying is that he actually is the one briefing both sides in the SAPS.
“So you have a person going around making gossip about people, and we are here today because of that gossip. We are attending to that. We think the minister is trying to tell his side, but it is not for us at this stage to say that we buy what he says, or we don’t.”
Nqola added that he sought clarity from the minister on the disbandment of the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) because the letter announcing the disbandment had been one of the main items they had to tackle.
“We needed to go to the grassroots of how did we arrive at a PKTT at all,(including) events leading to the establishment of a PKTT, which was preceded by an inter-ministerial committee. Have those reasons that led the president (Cyril Ramaphosa) to initiate a process of establishing the PKTT vanished? If not, then we can’t proudly say that the PKTT must vanish,” he said.
“The centre of what we are dealing with is the PKTT, but we have sub-items such as the filling of vacancies in theintelligence services, and the issue relating to the Ports of Entry. We have Section 206 and Section 207 of the Constitution that covers the operation of SAPS. Now we are testing to what extent these actions by the minister, adhere to those provisions.”
theolin.tembo@inl.co.za