Insider Testimony Could Expose Years of Police Corruption in South Africa

South Africans waiting for answers about corruption inside their police service will get a rare opportunity this week as Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala, the businessman at the centre of months of damaging testimony, is expected to take the stand before retired Constitutional Court judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga and his panel on Wednesday.

The Madlanga Commission has been running for ten months. Its hearings have laid out, in granular detail, how ordinary citizens’ trust in law enforcement may have been systematically undermined through alleged gifts, loans, and personal relationships between Matlala and senior police officers. The public has watched as witness after witness described arrangements that, if proven, would represent a serious failure of the safeguards meant to protect the integrity of policing.

Matlala’s own account of his life, delivered to parliament last year, is striking in its distance from the world of government contracts. Born in 1976 during apartheid, he grew up in a township east of Pretoria, raised largely by a single mother. When she left, he was on his own. “I had to raise myself. I was actually a street kid,” he told lawmakers. He reunited with his mother in 2002 when she was terminally ill and learned she had been sexually assaulted, a crime he attributed to myths surrounding her albinism. After her death, he built an informal business, though he also accumulated a criminal record that included a 2001 conviction for possession of stolen goods and subsequent arrests for house robberies, cash-in-transit heists, and assault. He was acquitted or had charges withdrawn in most cases and denied involvement in all of them.

His entry into public life came only three years ago, when his name appeared in news reports about alleged tender irregularities at a state hospital. He denied involvement. By May 2025, he had been arrested and charged with attempted murder, a charge he also denies. His wife faces the same charge and has been granted bail. Matlala has remained in police custody for more than a year.

He told parliament his nickname “Cat” came from his large family, not from any talent for escaping trouble. He said he turned his life around in 2017 by registering a formal security business, later expanding into healthcare despite, by his own admission, having no prior experience in health services. The expansion proved lucrative. He secured contracts first with a hospital, then with the police.

What the commission heard, beginning in September, painted a very different picture. According to testimony, Matlala allegedly provided 20 impalas to suspended deputy police chief Maj-Gen Shadrack Sibiya around the time Matlala was awarded his police contract. Sibiya denied receiving the animals, saying he would never “receive anything from a service provider.” Brig Rachel Matjeng, who oversaw the police contract awarded to Matlala, told the commission she had an on-off romantic relationship with him that included lavish gifts, among them shots of the weight-loss drug Ozempic. Matjeng has since been fired.

Meanwhile, Maj-Gen Richard Shibiri, head of the police’s organised crime unit, admitted to receiving a personal loan of 4,000 dollars from Matlala for repairs to his son’s car. Shibiri denied a close friendship despite frequent contact and personal advice, and said he was unaware Matlala was under criminal investigation. Shibiri was later dismissed from the force.

The inquiry has also examined allegations involving suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, who allegedly received indirect financial campaign support from Matlala. Mchunu has denied the accusations. Matlala told parliament he paid Mchunu’s predecessor Bheki Cele a 500,000 rand (31,000 dollars; 23,000 pounds) “facilitation fee” after police returned firearms seized from him. Cele admitted knowing Matlala and staying at his rented penthouse twice but denied receiving money from him.

In Ekurhuleni, a local government area east of Johannesburg, allegations emerged that while Julius Mkhwanazi was acting police chief, he arranged for blue lights and sirens to be fitted on Matlala’s personal vehicles. Mkhwanazi, now suspended, denied the allegations but admitted receiving money from Matlala, describing him as a “blood brother” at the commission.

Matlala also faces corruption charges related to providing health services to police. Last month he pleaded guilty as part of a prosecution agreement, then withdrew the plea after the deal collapsed. He gave evidence at a parallel parliamentary corruption inquiry last November, wearing a Fendi shirt and Gucci glasses, denied knowing senior police officers and politicians personally, and rejected corruption allegations, though he admitted making donations for activities related to the African National Congress, the main party in the coalition government. He did not address the wider allegations now before the Madlanga Commission, nor accusations that he was part of a drug trafficking cartel allegedly known as the Big Five.

Whether his testimony this week fills those gaps, or deepens them, is the question citizens and the commission alike are waiting to have answered.

For more details on this developing story, see https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq3q75y40do.