Cedrick Nkabinde on Thursday provided insight into his relationships with suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.

Testifying at the parliamentary inquiry, Nkabinde described Mchunu as someone he looked up to because of his profile in politics and public life, while he described Mkhwanazi as his best friend.

The parliamentary inquiry is probing the explosive allegations made by Mkhwanazi at a press conference on July 6, months after Mchunu issued controversial directives, including the disbanding of the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) to SAPS national commissioner Fannie Masemola on December 31, 2024.

Nkabinde said he met Mchunu in 2017 when Mchunu had lodged a complaint with the IPID (Independent Police Investigative Directorate) about the lack of progress in the police investigation into the murder of his bodyguards and the issue of the police regarding him as a suspect.

Nkabinde had been with IPID at the time.

“Minister Mchunu was complaining about the lack of progress in the investigation. We understood from his evidence at the time that the Director of Public Prosecution decided not to prosecute him.”

Their meeting included former IPID head Robert McBride.

“Mr McBride remembered his (Mchunu’s) complaint and said we are in KZN, let’s go to interview him. He knew that was an outstanding issue.”

Nkabinde defended the visit to Mchunu’s residence in eMpangeni, saying it was no unusual, even for the police to go to a complainant.

The former detective said he had kept in contact with Mchunu after the IPID investigation concluded, because he was a person of high profile.

“Once in a while we did have chats on some general things, in six months or eights months. It was not regular, but I kept in contact with him.”

Nkabinde then lost his job at IPID after falling out with McBride.

He claimed that Mchunu did not know he had left IPID when Mchunu approached him for the position of Chief of Staff in the Departrment of Water and Sanitation-Mchunu was the minister of the department.

Regarding Mkhwanazi, Nkabinde said he was introduced to him by a colleague, Mandla Mahlangu, while he was working at IPID.

He said that he and Mkhwanazi had visited Mchunu in eMpangeni.

“General Mkhwanazi was a very close friend of mine. I think it is safe to say it was a boys’ trip, otherwise me and him would get into trouble,” he said.

Nkabinde said his relationship with Mkhwanazi was so close that the top cop assisted him to find a job when he left IPID in 2018.

He shrugged off Mkhwanazi’s testimony at the inquiry, saying he was shocked when Mkhwanazi had claimed that he (Nkabinde) had no idea what a Chief of Staff did, even though he had been offered the job by Mchunu.

Nkabinde said he believed that Mkhwanazi was angry.

 “He was saying anything to taint my image.”

Nkabinde insisted that Mkhwanazi misled the inquiry by saying Nkabinde initiated the trip to see Mchunu.

“He was not telling the truth … He is the one who came to fetch me from my house with his car.”

mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za

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