In a more believable address, President Cyril Ramaphosa placed the re-vetting of senior police leadership at the heart of his renewed offensive against corruption, presenting the move as both a moral reckoning and a practical reset for a criminal justice system battered by years of abuse, capture, and internal decay.
Speaking in Cape Town during his 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday evening, Ramaphosa said the hearings of the Madlanga commission of inquiry had laid bare “rampant corruption in the SAPS and some metro police departments through the abuse of power”, exposing a crisis that can no longer be managed with half-measures.
“The rule of law depends on a police service that is ethical, responsive and rooted in the communities that it serves,” he said.
He announced that the State Security Agency will re-vet the senior management of the SAPS and metro police departments, with the vetting process to include lifestyle audits.
The SAPS, he added, has established a task team to ensure that investigations arising from the Madlanga commission are undertaken “swiftly and without interference”.
With the work of the Madlanga commission unfolding in a way that appears to bolster a measure of public trust in accountability, Ramaphosa now seems to be giving concrete expression to some of the commitments he made in his 2025 SONA, all thanks to the press briefing by KZN boss Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi on August 6, 2025.
During that address in February last year, Ramaphosa placed policing reform and the fight against corruption at the centre of the government’s state-building programme, outlining a technology-driven, intelligence-led and victim-centred approach aimed at restoring public safety and rebuilding confidence in law-enforcement institutions.
Intensification of Operation Shanela
He said the government’s overriding objective was to build “a nation in which everyone is safe”, stressing that the SAPS was working closely with other law-enforcement agencies, metropolitan municipalities and communities to dismantle organised crime syndicates and combat violent and financial crimes, particularly in provinces where criminality is most entrenched.
A key pillar of that strategy has been the intensification of Operation Shanela, which has resulted in large numbers of arrests, the recovery of firearms, and the seizure of stolen vehicles.
Ramaphosa described these operations as central to disrupting criminal networks and restoring order in high-crime areas.
Gun violence, he said last year, is a top national priority. He instructed the minister and national commissioner of police to prioritise reducing gun-related crime, including preventing the diversion of firearms into the illicit market and recovering illegal guns already in circulation.
International evidence and South Africa’s own experience, he noted, show that removing illegal firearms is one of the most effective ways of reducing overall violent crime.
Building on that stance, Ramaphosa said in his 2026 SONA that the government will now move to tighten the regulatory environment around firearms, announcing that legislation and regulations governing the licencing, possession and trading of firearms and ammunition will be streamlined, while enforcement of existing gun laws will be significantly increased.
He said these measures form part of a broader drive to choke off the supply of weapons that fuel organised crime, gang activity and violent offences across the country.
Illicit economy disruption programme
He linked the clampdown on gun crime to the state’s wider strategy of using technology, intelligence and integrated law enforcement to dismantle criminal networks, stressing that firearms do not circulate randomly but move through organised syndicates that must be systematically identified and taken down.
Ramaphosa further said the government is establishing a national illicit economy disruption programme that brings together key state agencies and other stakeholders, including the private sector, to target high-risk sectors such as tobacco, fuel, alcohol and counterfeit goods, with advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence used to expose and disrupt criminal value chains.
“These interventions,” he said, “are intended to ensure that the state is no longer perpetually on the back foot but proactively intercepts the financial and logistical lifelines of organised crime.”
Back in 2025, he announced that to strengthen investigations and improve case outcomes, the detective service would be expanded by 4 000 personnel through internal recruitment.
The government is also working to adopt surveillance technologies, analytics and smart-policing solutions to modernise law enforcement and entrench intelligence-led operations.
The growing role of technology in fighting crime, he said, is already evident in other parts of the state.
He cited the South African Revenue Service’s use of artificial intelligence to prevent more than R95-billion in impermissible tax refunds, recover R20-billion in revenue, and dismantle illicit tobacco and gold schemes, describing this as proof that data-driven tools can disrupt complex criminal activity.
New criminal justice reform initiative
Corruption fighting has remained a constant thread across both addresses.
Ramaphosa said the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption has been established as a permanent entity within the National Prosecuting Authority to investigate and prosecute high-level corruption, while a world-class digital forensics laboratory is being set up to support complex financial-crime investigations.
He added that the Special Investigating Unit and Asset Forfeiture Unit have already recovered more than R10-billion in state capture-related cases and that the government is finalising a whistleblower protection framework while strengthening South Africa’s system to combat money laundering and terror financing.
In his 2026 address, Ramaphosa went further, announcing a “hard-hitting new criminal justice reform initiative”, modelled on Operation Vulindlela, with a dedicated team in the Presidency to ensure that reforms are implemented across the system.
“We must act with zero tolerance and bring the full force of the law to bear,” he said. “Let this message be clear: there will be no impunity for acts of corruption and criminality.”
Together, these interventions, Ramaphosa said, signal a decisive shift towards a capable, technologically empowered and corruption-intolerant state that places public safety and accountability at the centre of governance.
The real test, however, will lie in whether the promised re-vetting becomes a cleansing instrument rather than a ceremonial ritual.
