President Cyril Ramaphosa has given the Madlanga commission until January 25 2027 to deliver its final report, citing the need to process additional evidence, hear outstanding testimony and review recommendations from various experts. The extension buys time. It also raises the question of what the public gets in return: for investors and operators watching South Africa’s institutional risk profile, the real issue is not only who is implicated in corruption, but how effectively the substantial budget of the criminal justice system is converted into public safety outcomes.
That question of value for money sits at the heart of the argument advanced by Dr Zizamele Cebekhulu-Makhaza, chair of the Safer South Africa Foundation, in a column published by HeraldLIVE (https://theherald.co.za/opinion/columnists/2026-11-12-madlanga-must-expose-what-s-broken-in-the-system-not-just-who-s-responsible/). His central contention is that naming individuals will achieve only so much if the country fails to confront the deeper structural problems undermining its criminal justice institutions. Exposing those structural failures, he argues, is the precondition for reforms that actually change behaviour rather than leaving weaknesses intact, a situation he describes as fighting crime with one arm tied behind the back.
Cebekhulu-Makhaza frames this through three fundamental questions about how the system is structured and whether it is equipped to fight crime efficiently. The first concerns centralisation, and it is here that the economic logic is sharpest. The South African Police Service (SAPS) has developed a large national administrative structure, with too much operational decision-making seemingly concentrated at head office. The concern raised is straightforward: an oversized administration may be consuming resources that could be better directed towards frontline policing, and the commission should examine how effectively that substantial budget is actually being spent.
The human cost of that administrative weight is felt on the ground, where many communities face inadequate policing resources. The column asks why decisions about police vehicles, infrastructure and other operational requirements should depend so heavily on national structures when provincial leadership is better placed to understand local needs. Every additional layer of bureaucracy, the argument runs, risks slowing decisions and delaying the delivery of essential resources. A growing town needing another police station should be able to respond through local officials without navigating lengthy national approval processes. The proposed division of labour is conventional on paper: national head office sets strategy and provides oversight, while provincial structures gain greater control over operational decisions and resource allocation to meet local needs. The commission’s findings, Cebekhulu-Makhaza suggests, should help establish whether SAPS needs to rethink how authority and resources are distributed.
The second question is legislative, and it carries direct implications for the cost of doing business in any economy where enforcement matters to confidence. South Africa’s Criminal Procedure Act dates back to 1977. Amendments have been repeated many times, but the column asks whether the framework remains adequate for the demands of modern crime fighting. Cebekhulu-Makhaza offers an asset-management analogy that readers of any balance sheet will recognise: you can keep replacing individual parts on a 1977 model car, but eventually you must examine whether the vehicle itself is still fit for the road. The specific concern is whether decades of amendments have addressed deficiencies in the powers and responsibilities of different institutions, and in the safeguards needed to prevent their abuse. The commission’s findings should identify where existing laws and oversight arrangements may have enabled wrongdoing or failed to prevent it, and where legislative shortcomings are revealed, the column argues for fundamental reform rather than continuing to patch up an ageing framework.
The third question concerns institutional design and the allocation of responsibilities between the bodies that investigate and prosecute crime. Are current arrangements encouraging effective cooperation, or creating unnecessary duplication that places further pressure on already stretched resources? The Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC), which operates within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), is offered as a case in point. IDAC was established to both investigate and prosecute complex corruption cases, but the column asks whether combining these functions within a prosecuting authority delivers the intended results, whether responsibilities are sufficiently clear, and whether resources are being used effectively. These questions matter because increasing investigative capacity achieves little if prosecutors and courts cannot effectively process the resulting cases; any reform must account for how the different parts of the system function together.
For market-watchers, the underlying logic is one of return on public investment. Capital directed into enforcement capacity that cannot convert cases into convictions represents value destroyed, and duplication between institutions compounds that loss. Cebekhulu-Makhaza’s conclusion is that the commission must be allowed to complete its work thoroughly, and that the process is too important to rush simply because citizens are eager for answers. The final report should give government clear recommendations on where wider institutional and legislative reform is needed, along with the evidence required to make difficult decisions about the future of criminal justice in South Africa. The alternative, he warns, is that the conditions for the next scandal remain firmly in place, an outcome that would carry its own costs for the credibility of the institutions on which business and investors rely. Whether the extended deadline produces that evidence, or simply a longer wait, is now the question hanging over the commission’s new calendar.