Questions are being asked whether the SANDF and SAPS have sanctioned their members to provide protection services to tender tycoon Vusi “Cat” Matlala.
This was after video clips showed Matlala’s vehicles flashing blue lights with members of the SANDF and police aboard as drivers and bodyguards.
The purported evidence of SANDF and SAPS members guarding Matlala also includes pictures and firearms registered in his security company’s name.
According to one of the video clips, which we have seen, Matlala’s German machines, fitted with blue lights, are seen flying on the freeway in Pretoria, which is close to the Atterbury Road off-ramp.
In another video, a woman believed to be Matlala’s partner is seen inside a vehicle, followed closely by another vehicle frantically flashing blue lights.
Our informants also alleged that the blue light escorts, which Matlala uses, are also frequently used to transport his wife Tsakani Matlala and other people.
In Matlala’s alleged high-flying days, one video shows a woman inside one of his
blue-light- and police siren-fitted vehicles with a caption “blue lights to drop off the Queen and her cubs”.
This, while two men with radio communication earpieces are in the front, one driving and the other in the passenger seat.
In some pictures, uniformed members of the SAPS are seen standing next to Matlala’s blue-light vehicles by the roadside.
Sunday World has also seen the firearm register of Matlala’s security company, named CAT VIP Protection, which contains names of senior members of the SANDF and SAPS.
Some of these servicemen allegedly even have their state duty ID cards stored at Matlala’s security company.
But both the powers that be at SANDF and the police have pleaded ignorance.
In a single-paragraph answer to detailed and specific questions, national police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said state-sponsored VIP protection was not for private individuals.
“The SAPS VIP protection provides protection to cabinet members at the national and provincial level, and not to private individuals. We are, therefore, not aware of these allegations about Matlala.”
Defence minister Angie Motshekga’s spin doctor, Onicca Kwakwa, said the minister does not know anything about the allegations.
“Please note that Minister Motshekga does not know anything about the issues you are raising and is therefore not able to comment.”
Matlala is currently being processed in court over the attempted murder charges of his former lover, television icon Tebogo Thobejane.
The state is also intent on adding two murder charges for incidents that happened in Pretoria West and Lyttelton.
Matlala’s notoriety, except for being feared by many in the streets of Tshwane, was brought into sharp focus by KZN police provincial commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi in his jaw-dropping press briefing last Sunday.
According to Mkhwanazi, Matlala, who has scored multi-million-rand worth of state tenders, is protected from the higher echelons of police and bankrolls the ANC with donations in kind, such as funding a gala dinner before this year’s anniversary celebrations in Cape Town.
News24 has also reported about Matlala’s alleged links to former police minister Bheki Cele, who made use of the businessman’s penthouse in Pretoria.
Matlala has continued to score state tenders, including a lucrative R360-million police health contract in June 2024, despite being under the spotlight and being probed over alleged corruption in Tembisa Hospital.
