Today marks precisely a week since KwaZulu-Natal’s most senior policeman and one of the most decorated and revered men in blue, Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, stunned the nation by making damning allegations against Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu.
South Africa is still feeling the ripple effects of what Mkhwanazi said.
In no uncertain terms, he told South Africa that the minister and deputy national commissioner, General Shadrack Sibiya, were cavorting with the criminal underworld and colluding to undermine the police fightback against crime, especially the investigations into political killings in KwaZulu-Natal.
Now, that province has yet to experience total peace and a break from the kind of violence that was the order of the day in the lead-up to the liberation of this land from the throes of apartheid.
Political killings have carried on as if April 17, 1994, never happened. It might not be on the same scale as the apartheid state-sponsored war witnessed in the province and Gauteng townships pre-1994, but it still is a cause for concern.
A famous politician that fell victim to the killing machine is former secretary-general of a Julius Malema-led ANC Youth League, Sindiso Magaqa.
He fell victim to gunfire ordered by those opposed to his determined fight against corruption in his municipality, where he was serving as a councillor.
If apartheid was the universal enemy, the undisputed enemy of progress today is the corruption that is feasting on resources that should be used to improve the lot of Black people.
Communities across the length and breadth of the country are lamenting the lack of service delivery while resources are wasted on leeches disguised as local government officials and office bearers and their corrupt acolytes in “business”.
Now, Mkhwanazi has alleged that a task team that was put together in KZN to probe killings such as Magaqa’s was stopped in its tracks on Mchunu’s orders.
The cases, he said, were transferred to Sibiya’s office, where they are gathering dust. Meanwhile, the killing machines keep churning out the bodies.
Mkhwanazi has put a cat among the pigeons and no doubt ruffled feathers in the highest corridors of power.
He left SA in no doubt that he has evidence by the truckload against the people he made allegations against and appeared to hold back enough to see what returning fire will bring.
The jury is largely still out, but the response from Mchunu, in our book, especially on his acknowledged links with a shady character named Brown Mogotsi, who you can read much more about in this edition of Sunday World, has left much to be desired.
Opposition parties have seized the opportunity to lay charges against the minister who had earlier denied knowing the man in a parliamentary sitting. The optics aren’t good at all.
All eyes are now firmly on President Cyril Ramaphosa to see what he will do about a police minister caught in such a quagmire, accused no less by a trusted and accomplished policeman, no less than Lt-Gen Mkhwanazi.
The president will address the nation on the saga tonight.
These are no minor accusations against Mchunu. Should we have a man so tainted leading the fight against rampant crime? We don’t think so.
