Mkhwanazi twisted what I said about comrade Brown Mogotsi, Mchunu tells Parliament

On Tuesday, 21 October 2025, sidelined police minister Senzo Mchunu resumed testifying in the Parliamentary ad hoc committee that is investigating accusations that a drug trafficking cartel has infiltrated policing and politics in South Africa.

He conceded to MPs that he had not beforehand told President Cyril Ramaphosa about his controversial directive to disband the Political Killings Task Team at the end of last year.

It was previously alleged that Mchunu had been influenced to disband the team as certain crime suspects were under the impression that this would derail investigations into them.

During Tuesday’s proceedings, Mchunu also again explicitly denied having any relationship with Gauteng organised crime accused and alleged Big Five cartel member Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala.

And he reiterated that he only vaguely knew North West ANC-aligned businessman Brown Mogotsi, whose business in Mahikeng was recently searched as part of a police investigation.

‘Never met him’ and ‘a comrade’

“I have never met Matlala… I have never seen him [with] my naked eye,” Mchunu said.

As for Mogotsi, Mchunu again insisted that even though he has known the businessman since 2017, he viewed Mogotsi as a “comrade”. 

“I’ve never enquired about his personal life because we just occasionally talk about this and that,” Mchunu said. He started testifying during Parliament’s ad hoc committee last week but did not finish, so he picked up where he left off on Tuesday.

Read more: Police descend on Brown Mogotsi’s business as Mchunu tells Parliament about PKTT decision

The committee is running parallel to the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry that is also investigating accusations of criminal infiltration into law enforcement.

Both these sets of hearings were formed in response to an explosive press conference that KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi held in July.

Mkhwanazi made a series of astounding accusations, including that Matlala, who is now facing attempted murder and money laundering charges, was financially backing both Mchunu and Mogotsi’s political ambitions.

Mogotsi was subsequently accused of being something of a middleman between Mchunu and Matlala.

During Tuesday’s Parliamentary ad hoc committee proceedings, Mchunu’s relationships with these and other individuals were focused on.

A 5 March Parliamentary police committee meeting, which is now pivotal because of the number of times it has been referenced during the ad hoc proceedings, was also referenced.

Read more: Crime Intelligence target of social media fake news, but Parliament hears unit also like ‘a mafia’

During that meeting in March, Mkhwanazi told the police committee that in October 2024 he had received a phone call and a message “from a gentleman who said to me he is a close associate of the minister of police… he referred to himself as Mr Brown Mogotsi”.

Mkhwanazi said he had checked up on Mogotsi with Mchunu’s chief of staff, Cedric Nkabinde.

Nkabinde had apparently told Mkhwanazi that Mogotsi was someone close to Mchunu.

Mchunu, responding to Mkhwanazi’s assertions during the 5 March police committee meeting, said: “I am no associate to the person that General Mkhwanazi is referring to.”

‘Something twisted’

During Tuesday’s proceedings, Mchunu said that Mkhwanazi, during his July press conference, had essentially accused him of being in cahoots with Mogotsi and Matlala, despite what Mchunu had said a few months earlier in Parliament about Mogotsi.

Shortly after the July press conference, Mchunu, who was placed on special leave, had insisted that Mogotsi was “just a comrade” from whom he had never “requested or received” anything.

Mchunu again underscored this during the ad hoc proceedings on Tuesday.

Read more: ‘No associate, just a comrade’ — Mchunu denies Mkhwanazi’s claim of ties to organised crime accused

He told MPs that Mkhwanazi, during his July press conference, told “the public something twisted… He told that to fit his narrative if he was not making a genuine error.”

The Oxford Dictionary definitions of “associate” and “comrade” were also focused on during Tuesday’s proceedings.

“Associate” meant “partner or companion in business or at work”, while “comrade” meant “a colleague or a fellow member of an organisation”.

This was the basis for Mchunu denying that Mogotsi was an associate and instead saying he was a “comrade”, because they were members of the same political party — the ANC.

Nkabinde, Mchunu’s chief of staff, was also referenced several times during Tuesday’s proceedings.

‘Ugly and strange rumours’

Mkhwanazi, when previously testifying in Parliament, had said that Nkabinde and Mchunu may have known each other because of a police watchdog investigation involving accusations that Mchunu had destroyed evidence in a now years-old investigation into a death. 

Mchunu on Tuesday said he had met Nkabinde in 2017 and confirmed what Mkhwanazi had testified, that it was due to an Independent Police Investigative Directorate matter.

Nkabinde had worked at the directorate at the time in 2017 (when it was headed by Robert McBride).

Mkhwanazi previously testified that Nkabinde told him that there had been a death in KwaZulu-Natal, and at the time Mchunu, who was then the premier of the province, “was accused [of having] interfered, with the destruction of… a crucial [piece of] evidence that was there”.

Read more: Mchunu once quizzed by his chief of staff over evidence destruction in police probe — Mkhwanazi

Mkhwanazi had also testified: “As to the reason why they never arrested [Mchunu]… I don’t have the details of it… It’s part of the things I’m still making inquiries on.”

This all related to the 2015 murder of Xolani Nkosi, who had been Mchunu’s bodyguard, when he was KwaZulu-Natal Premier.

Nkosi was shot several times. For two years the political killings task team investigated Mchunu for the murder until the Hawks arrested two suspects for carjacking and murder.

Mchunu, during Tuesday’s Parliamentary hearing, said he wrote a letter to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate in 2017 because he believed he was “being unjustifiably pursued by the Hawks” in terms of the Nkosi murder.

Read more: SA’s policing scandal explodes — ‘Under siege’ Sibiya and Mchunu’s chief staffer raided

“There were now rumours, very, very ugly and strange rumours, of putting me there,” Mchunu testified.

The Natal Witness at the time reported that rumours  spread by Mchunu's ANC rivals alleged that Mchunu co-opted Nkosi in a plot to assassinate the former premier’s political rival, Thulani Mashaba, who was also the ANC‘s Musa Dladla regional chairperson.

Following Mashaba’s death in July 2015 in a car accident, The Natal Witness reported that Mchunu's rivals alleged that  the former premier got Nkosi killed after the bodyguard had allegedly threatened to spill the beans on the earlier plot to assassinate Mashaba.

These rumours were used to get Mchunu voted out as the party’s provincial chairperson during the November 2015 provincial conference and his  subsequent ousting as KZN premier.

This was how Mchunu came to know Nkabinde, because Nkabinde and McBride had visited him about his concerns in relation to the Nkosi murder case.  Bheki Gumede (38) was found guilty of murdering Nkosi and robbing him of his firearm and cellphones while his co-accused Ntuthuko Mkhwanazi (27) was  sentenced to eight years for possession of  an unlicensed firearm and ammunition.

Daily Maverick recently reported that Nkabinde’s flat in Gauteng was raided as part of the broader policing scandal that Mchunu is linked to via Mkhwanazi’s accusations.

The Parliamentary ad hoc committee continues with Mchunu as a witness on Tuesday. DM